163: From Financial Panic to Financial Peace: The 3 Steps That Changed Everything

Are you tired of feeling overwhelmed by your finances but don't want to become a financial guru to figure it out?

In this episode, I break down the exact 3 steps that transformed my relationship with money—and they have nothing to do with budgeting apps or investment strategies.

What You'll Learn:

Must-Do #1: Get Out of Survival Mode First 

• Why you can't make good financial decisions when you're in panic mode 
• The first step to take if you've been laid off or need money urgently
• How to get an honest snapshot of your financial situation (even when it's scary)
• Why facing the truth is always better than living in fear

Must-Do #2: Learn to Let Go of Fear and Panic

• The connection between your money beliefs and your financial reality
• Why your current money story is creating your current money situation
• How to create space in your heart and mind for clear thinking
• The difference between reactive fear-based actions and intentional dream-based actions

Must-Do #3: Paint the Vision of Your Financial Future 

• How to shift from running away from fear to moving toward your dreams 
• The power of feeling your future financial reality before it happens
• Why visualization isn't just "woo-woo"—it's belief-building
• Tools for daily practice: meditation, journaling, and the MAP process

Key Takeaway: You have to BE the financially confident woman first, then you'll naturally DO the things financially confident women do, and finally HAVE the financial freedom you want.

Connect with me: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonsinghsidhu/
• Join my program waitlist: https://sharonsinghsidhu.com/5m
• Subscribe to my podcast: https://sharonsinghsidhu.com/podcast

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today I wanted to share three must do's if you want to master your money without even becoming a financial guru or expert. I don't know about you, But for me, I used to have this impression that only people who are very good with numbers or who are very analytical or have a finance degree or work in banking, they are the only ones, or of course, the very ultra rich, and that they are the only ones who would ever be able to master their money. And I used to feel very intimidated by anything that's got to do with the topic around money until that one fateful day, I guess, when I just decided I had enough. I was struggling with a six-figure business debt from a business venture that didn't work out and then shortly after that I went back to get a job to get money coming in but then I left the job without any backup plan because it was really a very difficult situation for me and I felt like I had to choose between my family and my work and honestly my own mental and emotional well-being and so I decided to leave but at that point by making that decision it meant that we had no income coming in because at that point in time I was the main provider for the family with our kids and it created a lot of stress so that was really the story behind why I started kind of really deciding that one sleepless night that I had that I had enough right I had enough sleepless nights worrying about money worrying about not having enough money worrying about where how I was going to pay for everything and you know does this mean I'm going to ruin my children's lives because because I will not be able to send them to school and to college and so I made that decision and it was a long time ago it's been over 10 years now as of this recording anyway and I've learned quite a few things along the way and I realized that actually you don't need to be a financial guru or an expert to master your money and in fact as I did more and more of this research and I started learning and teaching myself and educating myself more around financial literacy and personal finance I felt that there were there was something that was very important missing. And I decided to do things a little bit differently. And that has resulted in me being able to, first of all, feel a lot calmer and happier and at peace and no longer so worried and stressed about not having enough money like I used to before. And secondly, I think which is quite nice is being able to create additional income streams, right? So many of us are talking about passive income and generating multiple income streams and how do we actually go about doing that well that's kind of been my I guess now 10 year over 10 year almost like yeah more than that I think journey to try to figure out the answers to those questions so Anyway, I wanted today's episode to be really the very first steps, the three basic first things that you need to do if, let's say, you're starting maybe back where I was, completely confused, afraid, worried and stressed out and just panicking and just feeling a lot of, I guess, uneasiness and resistance around this topic of money. A really easy way to start, of course, depending on your personal situation, right? I mean, of course, if you don't really have to worry about the income coming in at the moment then maybe you can actually skip to step two and step three that I'm going to teach you I'm going to be sharing with you today but if you were like me I just really needed to get income coming in because that was all I could think about how was I going to make the mortgage payments how was I going to make sure there's food on the table how am I going to pay for school fees you know these things don't stop right your bills never ever stop and so even when your income stops you have to figure out quickly how to on a very practical level get things going again so for me I feel like if you're in this first step you just have to take some really practical steps to get out of this survival mode for me it was just about just getting the next job it didn't have to be my ideal job I even took a pay cut but all I needed was to just get some income coming in because what I found is that if you're in that if you are in that state where you are in like this pure panic and survival mode it's really hard to think about anything else right that's why sometimes people I mean I'm not trying to say this to judge or anything I'm talking about my personal experience sometimes people say oh you know you don't have to worry about money and all of that and I do say these things too but I feel like that is you can say that when you're in a position where you actually don't need money on a very essential level, because if you really still need very essential level to cover your basic necessities, that it's going to sound very, first of all, insensitive and completely out of touch, right? Because we do have to get certain practical things going. So first step is to do that. I think that this is not the time I want to go into, even though I have a background in recruiting and HR and how you can go about and get a job or generate money. But I tell you what I did. All I did was very simple. I googled how to make money fast. So when I did that, of course, you can imagine the kind of results that you would get. All the scams, all the overnight success, all the get rich quick. And it was very disheartening. It was very discouraging because I I honestly didn't know what to do. And that was all I knew to do. So I Googled it. And can you imagine like 10 years ago, I think AI wasn't really all that developed. I mean, not so accessible to the lay person. And so I relied on Google. But what is really interesting is that it was through that process of discovery and just trying to find the answer that I got to where I am today. And that's the amazing thing about your mind and your brain is that when you ask good questions to yourself, your brain just automatically goes to work to find those answers whether you're aware of it or not and the reason that a lot of people get stuck is because they ask really bad questions right they ask things like why is this always happening to me why is this really bad thing always happening to me and so of course your mind's gonna go find answers that's going to confirm that right we call it confirmation bias already finding the evidence to confirm what you already believe but i'm jumping ahead of myself let's just go to let's let's go to the first step first right so the first step first is to get yourself out of this survival mode because what's that actually happening is like when you're in the survival mode, you're kind of in your fear tunnel. And when you're in this fear tunnel where you are really worried and scared, all you can think about is the problem ahead of you. You can't think of anything else. So I would say Sometimes when you're in this state, you kind of have to do like really practical things to get yourself, even if it's not ideal, to get yourself a little bit out of this fear tunnel. So for me, it meant just taking the next job that came along. Honestly, it was just being willing to, I guess, lower my standards and expectations and just get something coming in, knowing that that could just be an interim. So sometimes we all have to do, you know, like temporary things that we know is an interim. Okay, so another thing that I found was quite helpful in helping me to feel like I was at least taking some action to move forward and get myself out of this fear tunnel was to just simply get an idea of my financial situation. So what happened to me was that it kind of really forced me to look at something that I was not willing to look at before, to look at my financial situation. I never really needed to think too much about it somehow. There was always enough money coming in until then, right? And so I just started calling my bank. I just decided, okay, I'm going to try to understand what all these things mean on my bank statement, on my credit card statement. I got everything under one spreadsheet, like under one roof, right? Every single payment so that I could know exactly how much money was flowing out, how much was coming in, even though it was very scary to see how big the shortfall was. I feel like even just the act of just looking at that and having the courage to look at that really helped me to, in a weird way, give me a sense of more control. I wouldn't say peace, but more like, okay, at least I know what the situation is now because you're not going to be able to do anything constructive or effective if you don't honestly look at the situation right, at the moment. So that's another thing that you could do as a practical first step. So the first must do to master your money is take some practical steps, right, depending on your situation. So that would be the first thing. The second must do, I feel, is to learn how to let go of that panic, to let go of the fear. Because like I said, when you're in that state of fear and panic, you just cannot think straight, right? You only see the problem. And when you're very fixated on the problem, there is no way you can see solutions and there's no way that you can have new ideas. And so this, I think, is a very crucial step. And it kind of happened for me organically, like naturally evolved, right? Because once, okay, I got some money coming in, I knew what my financial situation at that moment was. Then it just naturally, the next step was that to ask myself, how do I stop feeling this way? How do I stop feeling so anxious and panicky around my finances every time I looked at my money situation? So the second thing I started learning to do was how to let go and release this fear and panic. And the way I did it was or at least what I learned and discovered was that unlike what you often hear in the conventional personal finance space, they're always going to ask you to just focus on your budgeting, your saving, your investing, your educating yourself about how the financial world works, what are some of the tools and instruments and what you need to do. It's very action-oriented, which is important, but I feel like the order of it, sometimes it's a little bit reversed or there is at least this second point here that we need to address because a lot of if you just observe just observe a lot of the financial advice that you'll see is very fear-based it's very fear-based driven meaning to say that it's always about lack and scarcity. Like if you don't save, you are going to be in big trouble. You're not going to have enough to retire, which yes, I know it can be the situation, but we don't need to hear it 10,000 times on repeat and just kind of feed that fear, right? Or like, you know, you're spending too much. It's either fear or guilt. That's what I've found, right? Like you're spending too much. You shouldn't be spending on this and you shouldn't be doing that. And you know, it's all of these kinds of, the tone is very much based on fear and guilt and but for me what really helped me instead was to let go of that fear and panic and to do that you have to get really to the root of why you have this fear and panic yes on the surface you can say well you know I just don't have enough money if I had enough money all my fears and worries will go away well no that does not happen because this was another conclusion I came to because despite earning way way way much more than before I at some point was still worrying about not having enough money and it's like yes okay there is a certain level of inflation right and of course you you do need to um account for rising prices and all of that uh but it was very odd for me i found it very puzzling that why is it that no matter how much i make or how much more i make or additional incomes i i make why does it always Why do I still always still worry and feel stressed that that wasn't going to be enough? And then when I finally paused enough to look back and see, oh, you know what? I always had enough. I mean, I'm still standing here. I'm still alive. My kids are still well fed. They are still going to school. We're not homeless. We're not on the streets. We have a roof over our heads. We drive a nice car and et cetera, et cetera. And so it did not make sense, right? So then that kind of led me to go a little bit deeper. You're like an investigator of your own finances. and your life, you know? So then that led me to go a little bit deeper to explore and excavate like, okay, what else is going on there? And that's when I started learning about these things called money stories, the psychology of money, your beliefs, your mindsets, how you feel around money, how you were raised. I mean, how the topic around money was treated and talked about and how you saw people around you, how they behave around money when you were growing up. And that led me into all this work around the mindset and your subconscious mind and a lot of the psychology stuff and a lot of the actually neuroscience stuff and all the research. So I really started going down that rabbit hole. And that's when I learned that, you know what, all the fear and panic and stress and worry that I was feeling, actually the root of it came from my money stories and my beliefs around money. That just simply means like the kind of stories I was telling myself around money. And I mean, of course, we can go into all where that came from, but I think more importantly, more practically was to learn how to let go of all of that, number one, and of course, to take the things that are useful that are helping me to have the life that I want and create the financial future I want. But also to be able to see what was actually not helping me. This constant fear and worry around not having enough, this very always not enough, scarcity kind of a mindset was not really helping me because it doesn't just apply to money. You'll find that these beliefs actually they go into all different parts of your life, how you see your career, how you see the work you do, how you are with your relationship with others. This not enough is like could come out in the form of the people talk about perfectionism, imposter syndrome and all of this is because it's coming from that fear of not being good enough, not being accepted. Somehow something is you're just not enough, right? And that was like the dominant theme in my life. And I feel like I see this in a lot of women, especially where we always feel like we're not really quite good enough for whatever, you know, we might like act like as if like okay it's all great we're very secure and all but you know you can see kind of the telltale signs of the words that i use the way people behave and the way they act around different people all of this comes up right i mean that's the advantage of being like the quiet observant introvert you actually can read a lot of what the the behaviors of people and and so i i see that a lot and um So the second point that I wanted to make was really to learn how to let go and release that fear and panic. First of all, to recognize that that To be aware, to be aware, right? That first of all, maybe a lot of your money stories and beliefs are what's driving all your stress and anxiety and worry around money, okay? So just be aware of that and learn how to let go. And then you might be asking me, well, okay, how do I let go? Say, if I know this is the situation and how do I actually release and let go of that fear and panic? That kind of brings me to the point number three. And... Point number three, the must do to master your money without becoming a financial guru or expert, this is accessible to everyone, is simply to visualize the future that you want. And you may or may not have heard about visualization. Visualization, I used to think was just a nice story but not very practical, doesn't work in real life until I started learning about how high performers and professional athletes and people who are really at the top of their game, they do this a lot. They do a lot of visualization apart from their standard training that they do, which is very grueling. A lot of it is mental. A lot of it, they go into mental rehearsal. They run that play over and over in their minds for so much that they can visualize it. They visualize the outcome they want, right? They go through that whole routine and they actually play it out in their minds. And so that led me to think about, hmm, interesting, what have I been playing out in my mind that's been creating this reality that I'm in now where I'm always worried about money? Because here's the other thing I learned is that your reality, your external reality, your 3D reality right now, right people don't realize it but then it is a product it is the outcome of what you're thinking in your mind and what you're feeling in your heart so your beliefs and your stories that you have on right in your mind and in your heart that's been repeated over and over again actually plays out in your external life so your 3d world your physical world there's a time lag so everything that you're living right now and experiencing right now is a product of is a result of what you have been thinking about what you believe almost like if you think about the self-fulfilling prophecy that's exactly it we create our reality first in our minds and then we live it out in our 3D reality so that was something that I learned and I started to experiment with because of course I'm very 3D I'm very logical I need to see research I need I mean I need to see the evidence right evidence-based right we love that right show me the results and then I'll believe it show me the evidence and then I'll believe it and so I started experimenting experimenting with that in my life, in different areas of my life. I was looking at, OK, this is not something I really like. I don't really want to worry about money anymore. And I've heard that it is because it's my belief system that I've created the reality. So fine, if I want a different reality, I have to change my beliefs and my thoughts and my feelings around money. So I'm going to go and try and do that. And And I think that this one, sometimes I also get questions, right? Well, how do you do that? This is something that, that's the reason why I'm such a big proponent of meditation, of journaling, and of this technique called the MAP method, because it's all about, it's a combination, right? It's a combination of visualization. It's a combination of being still with yourself. It's a combination of like getting in touch with your intuition and learning to hear from your heart and getting, actually learning how to feel to identify what you're feeling. Because I think in school, a lot of us are taught to use our logical minds, but we're not really taught how to master our emotional minds. We're not really taught how to process our emotions. Some of us can't even label the emotions, not that we want to necessarily have to label it, but we want to be able to discern and be able to see the difference between what's something I'm doing that's driving me because of fear, fear of something, versus because of something that I'm inspired to do. And And so I think this is something that I started really to practice and through meditation is really how I learned to get better and better at discerning what I'm feeling and to identify what's fear-driven, what is intuition-driven, what is it that I really honestly want myself because it's something I want or is it something that I'm fearful that something's going to happen and therefore I don't want it and therefore I'm doing something. So I really learned how to do all this through the practice of meditation. And so point three is really about the visualizing the future that you want and then feeling what it feels like to live it. Because you have to feel it first to build that belief. Because the belief is all happening and it exists in your mind. It doesn't exist in a physical form. The physical form is an outcome and product and a result of that belief that was in your mind that you can't really touch, feel and hold, right? So if you don't want to worry about money anymore, this story that you have in your mind that I always have the money that I need. I can create the money that I want on demand. I'm okay. I will figure things out. I'm the sort of person who can figure things out. These are the beliefs of someone who is financially confident, who is very calm and very clear headed. I'm the sort of person who doesn't panic whenever I see my bank account drop. In fact, I actually can approach it in a very objective way and I can find incredible resourceful creative solutions around it and so that's the kind of stories we want to tell because that's the kind of story if you ask yourself what would a financially confident woman be like what would she feel how would she think what would she do that's all a version of yourself that you're not yet right currently you're in this situation in this current reality because you have the belief and stories of someone who has the situation that you're in now. So if you want to change your situation, it is not just going headfirst and doing all the actions without changing your beliefs, which are also kind of like part of who you are, right? Like it's the sort of person that you are, your identity. So if you don't change the sort of person that you are and you force these actions that don't match up with the kind of person you are, you're still going to be that fearful person, that person who always worries that there's not enough. And so you can do all these actions First of all, you might have results, but the results are limited or not sustainable and not permanent. It's really like if you think about a lifestyle change, if you want to go from someone who doesn't eat healthy to someone who's fit and strong and very healthy, it's an entire lifestyle change. You can't just go to the gym and work out and then go home and eat things that are not going to help you to be strong and healthy and fit, right? It's the same concept. So I had to really change my lifestyle. And so my lifestyle had changed from no meditation to meditating every day, from never being aware of what I was thinking and feeling to journaling out all my thoughts and feelings and emotions. I'm always very conscious and aware of what's going on in my inner world, my mind and in my heart to how I feel. And the feelings sometimes when I'm very frustrated or I'm very angry or sometimes I'm very impatient and then I lash out at people. I mean, I think about those things And I journal about those things. I reflect on those things. I meditate on those things so that I can see very, very clearly, like in 3D in my mind, oh, that's not the sort of person who would get the results that I want. And so then I can, it's like I said, it's kind of relating to point one, right? You've got to be able to see where you are now. And then see and decide, is this what you want or is it not? If it's what you want, that's great, because there could be things that are doing that are working for you. It's what you want. And then you want to do more of that and you want to improve on that. And maybe, yeah, you know, like, yeah, do more of it. Right. But if it's what you don't want, then what do you want? And then you have to then change. Right. And so this has been kind of really and the map, of course, the map process, I didn't really I mean, I talked about it in previous episodes, but, you know, just very quickly for those of you who are hearing Matt for the first time, it's really about changing, permanently changing the way our minds, our brains are wired so that we don't have the same thought patterns and emotional patterns anymore. Because what happens with a lot of us is that we are repeatedly what we do, right? And we are repeatedly what we think and feel. So if you don't like your situation now in the physical reality, then you have to change what you repeatedly think and feel and do. So map is just a technique that helps us to do that by really rewiring the way our brains are wired so that the changes are permanent and they are long term. And it's all based on neuroscience. This bit by bit, obviously, it's not something that you do today and then tomorrow you forget or you do it for five minutes and then you forget. It's a lifestyle change. Like I said, it's a lifestyle change. So meditation, journaling and mapping, that's really what I do every single day. It's moment by moment. I can do it on the spot. That's what I love about it. For busy moms, we don't have time to sit down and meditate for an hour or do something for an hour. But I try to use tools where it's things that we can do on the go. It happens in the background and I minds we don't really need to set aside a whole block of time we hardly ever get a whole block of hours in chunks of time right for us we're doing things in small pockets of time wherever we have and so bit by bit through daily practice i started changing who i was becoming um the person i am from someone who's completely clueless and scared about money to now i'm talking about it with you here right and it's become the thing i do to help other women because i i know what it feels like it was um it's a horrible place to be in because you feel trapped you feel powerless you feel confused you feel scared you feel like there's no way out you know and you don't know what to do it's like this desperation and I don't ever first of all I don't ever want to go back to feeling that way and that's why I decided to do this work and second of all I don't want like women who to feel that way and feel like you're alone because you're not and there is a clear pathway out and there are proven things that can work and that's the reason why I wanted to share these three must do's it's the kind of stuff that I don't don't think you'll ever really usually hear people from personal finance talk about they're going to talk to you about how you must track all your spending and have a budget and then invest in index funds and which are the best tools and vehicles which are all great and fantastic but that cannot be the only thing and that should not be the foundation i feel like you you know that's building on shaky ground if you still don't have a good foundation of the kind of person like a financially confident person is okay like who you are so I hope this helps you and you know this is really all about the work that I do doing helping you to change your money mindsets from the inside out you know how you think and feel around money and then you take the actions from there because then you're not in that fear tunnel and you can see things clearly and you can see things objectively without the panic without the fear without impulsive decisions and that is how you make like better quality decisions and take better actions that last okay so that's all I have for you today. It turned out to be a longer episode than I expected, but it's because it's something I'm very passionate about. Maybe you can tell. So thanks so much for listening and I'll catch you again in the next episode. Bye.