Conquer Your Financial Fears: Make This The Year

Your money challenges are very personal. You may have a large credit card balance gnawing at you, while your best friend is awake at night worrying about being able to keep working through her 60s, and your sister across the country is stressed over how to pay for her kids’ college education. Those are all very different financial worries, but they are in fact borne from the same core emotion: fear.

Now listen, I have spent my entire career sharing the best money strategies and advice to anyone that is smart enough to listen. And I continue to do this in my brand-new book The Ultimate Retirement Guide for 50+: Winning Strategies to Make Your Money Last a Lifetime. In this book, my first in nine years, I’m putting it all out there. Strategies. Dos. Don’ts. Challenges. But honestly, none of that really matters if you can’t master this one essential requirement:

The only way to conquer fear is through action.

When fear is raging in your head and heart it is incredibly damaging. You can’t think straight. You can’t make sound decisions. You can’t be your very best. Fear prevents you from being more and having more.

You deserve better.

Your optimism and resolve will be what transforms the advice you receive into actions and decisions that will propel you and your family toward the future you deserve. That means no focusing on the rearview mirror of life. Look at what you have today and what you can do to create the tomorrows you want and deserve.

Here’s the very first sneak peek from The Ultimate Retirement Guide for 50+:

For you to live the retirement you deserve, you need to let go of the past. Maybe there were some bad financial decisions at some point that derailed you. Maybe it was a divorce or an unexpected death. Maybe the Great Recession did a number on you or your loved ones, and you are still digging out financially. Maybe you are totally underwater paying back your kids’ student loans. Maybe it’s on you to take care of your aging parents. I get it—all these things, and plenty more, can sap your spirit as well as your finances. But here is something I would like you to do every time you begin to feel anxious and afraid. I want you to look in the mirror and say these words:

I am a warrior, and I am not going to turn

my back on the battlefield.

I am well aware that my critics will sink their teeth into that one. “Are you kidding me, Suze? That’s the advice you’re giving people?” To which I would reply, “Oh, you bet it is.” For here is the scoop, my friends. If you cannot pick yourself up, if you cannot start taking action right now, then who is going to do it for you?

Look around you. Who cares about your money more than you do? The answer is no one. What happens to your money directly affects the quality of your life—not my life, not some financial advisor’s life, but your life.

Why a warrior and why a battlefield? Why did I choose these words to bolster your spirit? Because I want you to know that you have the strength and you can summon the courage to move toward your goals no matter what is in front of you. And because I know it is not always easy.

You have the power within you. We all do. It’s just a question of summoning the courage and the determination to tap that power. Together we can do this. Together we will tackle all the decisions that come into play at this stage of your life so that you can be free to actually enjoy your retirement.

The ultimate retirement as far as I am concerned is one in which you are not stressed about money. I don’t want you to spend your retirement worrying whether your savings are going to last. I don’t want you to spend your retirement nervous about whether you made the right choices with your investments. You deserve so much more than fear in your later years.