Overcoming Fears Of Losing Money

I hate losing money.

I do.

I hate it.

I have yet to meet someone who enjoys losing money, and I've never met a rich person who has never lost money. But I've met lots of people who aren't rich who have never lost money in investing or business.

Look, this fear of losing money is real. To me, it leaves a bitter ache in my heart, but I accept that it's part of the process of learning and refining the art of making more money via entrepreneurship, Passive Income Internet Businesses (PIIB) and Passive Income Investing (PII).

Everyone has this fear, regardless if you're rich or poor. Even monkeys scream if they feel shortchanged.

But that's not the biggest problem, the fear is not the biggest problem - the biggest problem lies in how you manage the fear. In how you manage losing, and in what you learn from it - what makes the difference between richer and richer and poorer and poorer is how you handle the loss and failure. Of course, the same can be said about life in general, but let's keep to just fear of losing money for now.

It's perfectly normal and okay to be fearful of losing money - I rather you have this fear than not. You fear it not only because you know that it's hard-earned, but also we don't like to be losers. We all want to be winners. It's perfectly understandable to be afraid when it comes to money....and you can still be a rich therapist despite this fear. There's things we're icky about and things we're not icky about: I'm not icky when it comes to blood and visceral stuff (maybe it was my training and experience as a hand therapist), but my wife would prefer not to. You talk to me about accounts, I'm super icky cause I'm really uncomfortable with it.

If you're afraid of losing money, there's two solutions can you can use at the same time or independently: start small and/or start early. Starting small allows you to experience less fear and pain if/when you actually lose money (I love this concept because I love experiementation on small scale before ramping up full scale); starting early would allow you to capitalize on the power of compounding. I think this is the same reason why banks encourage people to start saving early - if you start young, it's much easier to be and become rich. A person who invests $10,000 at 20 years old as compared to a person who invests in $10,000 at 30 years old is worlds apart.

It's this power of compounding interests that led me to my growing passion and interests in Passive Income Investing (PII). Which is also the same reason why I hold a minimum 10, 15 years minimum timeline of my investing, with dividends reinvesting for accelerated growth over the years to come. But you must start as early as you can.

But what happens if you don't have much time or you want to retire early, so that caps your timeline? How then can you handle losing money? From my viewpoint, if you're older, you should have more savings to invest in, and so you can also start experimenting with smaller amounts before ramping it up. However, if you've tried and certain that your fear of losing money is too great, then I'll recommend that you go into Passive Income Internet Businesses (PIIB) to earn money for daily living and which surplus you can push into dividend stocks.

But, don't stay in fear or keep talking about the fear and doing nothing about it. Start by taking smaller steps and smaller experiments, just don't stop where you are in fear and keep complaining or keep being fearful - if you stay here, that's when you lose everything. Some people are so afraid of losing that they play the "not-to-lose-game" which really is a losing game.

Be unafraid to lose.

Like most skills in life, it's similar to learning a bicycle. Maybe the first 10, 20 or 50 times you try to ride a bicycle, and you fall off. Maybe you have some scratches on your knees and elbows, and what do you do? Whining or crying about the pain wouldn't make you any better in riding the bicycle. So what you've to do is to pick yourself up, sit on the bike again, and try again, and refining your process and actions. You do this repeatedly until you can stay on the bike. Most stories about this learning to ride stop there. But that's not it. There's still more to learn. You can learn to ride the bicycle casually in a linear fashion. You can pick up cornerings. You can pick up cycling without sitting. Or going further than you did yesterday. Or faster. Or compete.You will still fall, people will still cycle faster than you, but you just keep going.

Likewise in Passive Income Internet Businesses (PIIB) and Passive Income Investing (PII) and making more money, you can always get better.

Let your losses, failures, disappointments and shortcomings and all your pains become your inspiration to do better. Most people who undergo losses and pains and disappointments often get defeated and shy away - let me let you in on a secret. Winners go through the same pains, the only difference is that they turn these pains into inspirations to win, for your more compelling future for yourself and your loved ones.

Search In NigelChua

Hello, and welcome to nigelchua.com - I'm the founder and writer.

Also husband, father, Christian, entrepreneur and dividend stock investor and owner director of Phoenix Rehab Group Physio & Hand Clinics. 

Read more about me here.

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