Worry about when and how I would start to earn money again reared its head every few months after I left my job. On leaving, I set myself a timeframe for when I wanted to start earning again, based on the money in my current account and my anticipated monthly spend. However, in the context of joint finances with my husband, this timeframe was actually an arbitrary date, rather than a deadline I needed to meet.
In his book, “How to worry less about money”, John Armstrong distinguishes between money worries and money troubles[1]. John defines money worries as being “about what is going on in your head, not just what is going on in your bank account.” They are concerns that stem from our psychological relationship to money. In contrast, money troubles are real financial difficulties that need to be solved urgently; by increasing income and/or reducing expenses.
I recognised that we did not have an immediate financial need for me to earn. But I was anxious about future financial stability. I had been able to let go of these money worries during the summer of 2019. However, my desire to earn increasingly preoccupied my thinking as autumn turned into winter. My husband began asking if he would have to change his retirement plans to compensate for my lack of income. I felt the clock was ticking. I was counting the time that had elapsed since leaving employment and my husband’s planned retirement was getting ever closer. I was also worrying about whether I would have enough money to enjoy a comfortable retirement, even though that is a long way off!
The pressure I was feeling to earn money almost unconsciously created an end goal which distorted my real intent. My thinking went like this: I have invested in developing my coaching expertise. This is the closest strand in my emerging portfolio career that I could earn money from. I know I can create value for my clients. I should therefore start charging for my coaching. I really wanted to coach more people so I could use and further develop my coaching skills, while helping people feel happier at work. However, my money worries transformed my desire to coach into a goal to gain paying coaching clients, as soon as possible.
I enrolled on a course to help me define a niche, design a coaching programme and effectively market my coaching. While this initially helped provide a focus with templates and tasks to complete, it soon created stress. I felt a tension between wanting to start a business “the right way” pulling against a sense that I didn’t actually agree with the suggested approach. My attempts to codify my coaching offer ran counter to one of my key principles; to tailor my approach in response to what matters to different individuals.
I also started going to business networks, to build relationships with people and refine explaining who I am as a coach and what I offer. I enjoyed meeting people and sharing experiences. However, as I repeatedly introduced myself as a business and executive coach, this narrowed my perspective, taking away my appreciation of the possibilities of other potential career strands which could make up my portfolio. I lost my sense of experimentation. I found it very hard to let go of my perceived need to attract paying clients. I became increasingly anxious. I knew this wasn’t how I wanted to be. Experimenting and being playful in order to learn and develop are important to me. But the idea of setting up a coaching business made everything very serious, raised the stakes and made achieving success important. My focus shifted from enjoying the journey to achieving a result, which was sucking the joy out of life.
A practical exercise suggested by John Armstrong in his book is to identify what we need in order to live a flourishing life. That is, not just what we need to survive, but what are the things that are important to us? That have a clear, practical purpose in enabling us to live a good life? Once we have identified these needs (and distinguished them from wants which are less important), the next step is to try and cost them. The aim is to be realistic about what we need first so this list is not restricted by what we think we can afford. He includes different costings in his example; minimal costs, costs which reflect true needs and more extravagant costs. There may well be needs we can’t currently afford and this reality check is designed to enable us to consider how to get closer to meeting our true needs. Which could be by earning more or by re-prioritising what we spend our money on; “downgrading certain wants and leaving them unfulfilled”.
John warns that this can be a painful exercise and working with my husband to cost our needs as a couple was not easy. However, I found it really useful and having done it, my worries about money reduced. Comparing our costed needs to our combined income before and after my husband retires gives me ball-park figures that I can use to make informed decisions about opportunities and next steps.
[1] Armstrong, J (2012). How to worry less about money. The School of Life, Pan Macmillan.
Blog post image by Gerd Altmann from Pixaby
Seeing life's tapestry 