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**I am NOT a certified financial professional.

Financial self-sabotage may be one main reason you don’t have your dream finances as yet. The root of self-sabotage is often hidden deep in our subconscious mind. We have to do some work to find out limiting beliefs around money and replace them with true abundant beliefs. 

My article shows you what financial self-sabotage looks like, the emotional roots, why you need both your masculine and feminine energies to handle money, and 6 strategies to stop sabotaging how you handle money. 

What Does Money Self-Sabotage Look Like? 

First off, what does it mean to self-sabotage? Self-sabotage is when you engage in habits, thought patterns, and behaviors that stop you from improving or building financial security. 

Financial self-sabotage shows up as overspending, hoarding money, avoiding budgeting, impulsive spending, debt accumulation, and ignoring your finances. Let’s go a bit deeper into each. 

Overspending: This is when you purchase items that you are not able to afford, often leading to financial debt or struggle

Hoarding Money: Holding onto financial assets or resources instead of spending them. Unrestricted cash hoarding impedes creating financial stability because your money is not being put to work for you. 

Avoiding Budgeting: This looks like not tracking your spending, not setting aside money for an emergency fund, and setting unrealistic financial goals. 

Impulsive Spending: Spontaneous buying of goods or services, often driven by emotions and impulses instead of carefully thought-out reasoning. 

Debt Accumulation: Slow increase of debt over time, often caused by borrowing money without ever repaying in full, later leading to financial stress. 

Ignoring your finances: When you avoid looking at your bank account balance and bills and would rather ignore where you stand financially out of fear. 

These are very small behaviors, but they add up, often leading to financial turmoil later on. Financial self-sabotage is important to recognize, especially if you’re a woman. It’s so important, especially in this time period, since by 2030, women are projected to own $30 trillion, or two-thirds of America’s wealth. 

If that’s true, you better be ready to handle all the overflow that’s coming your way. 

A 2021 study done by the George Washington University revealed that 50% of US adults feel stressed when discussing personal finances, and 60% feel anxious even thinking about their finances. I want to make sure my readers are in the opposite 50% and 40%. 

What Is the Emotional Root of Financial Self-Sabotage?

Self-sabotage is a result of withstanding emotional pain, warped thought patterns, and subconscious-level fears. In order to stop financial self-sabotage or any other kind of self-sabotage, you have to understand these roots. 

Let’s go a bit deeper. 

Fear of Scarcity:

Many people have this fear or limiting belief that everything is limited and there is never enough for everybody. This fear is an undeniable root of financial self-sabotage. You may have felt threatened whenever a friend found success or when you saw how saturated a market is. These are limiting beliefs that CAN be challenged and changed. 

This fear of scarcity shows up in two ways: hoarding money while it just loses value or reckless overspending, driven by a careless feeling. Fear shapes how we approach handling money. If you fear that anxious feeling of seeing how much you have to pay in bills, you avoid checking for outstanding expenses, which only creates more anxiety and financial stress. 

I find that women especially fear success, specifically making money, because they believe it makes them unlovable. Money tends to threaten a woman’s perceived relational security. It’s not wrong to want companionship, but always remember you don’t have to hold yourself back to find a partner. 

Research done by Dr. Krueger found that women who received much love from their fathers when they showed traditional and submissive female traits and experienced unsupportive or critical behavior when they displayed more independent or assertive qualities will sabotage their own success to protect themselves from outside disapproval. 

Shame From How You Handle Money:

A study done on over 9,000 participants found that shame escalated financial struggle. You start to feel embarrassed and ashamed whenever something goes wrong: a missed payment, too much debt, or an overdraft on your account. You end up believing that you’re bad with money.

This shameful feeling leads to avoiding any situation that may create this feeling. Most of the time what ends up happening is you stop checking what bills you need to pay, and you don’t check your bank account balance. Not knowing where you stand financially never helps you. Some people say ignorance is bliss, but when it comes to finances, ignorance often results in turmoil. 

Women ultimately feel shame on a deeper level than men. It’s difficult for women to become comfortable with “taking” behavior. Economic research shows that for each dollar that is taken, there is a 0.5 increase in shame for women. 

Attachment Styles:

Attachment styles definitely have an effect on how we view money and what we do with it. Your attachment style is a very important aspect to look at. It dictates the quality of some of your most important relationships. But how do these attachment styles affect your relationship with money?

Anxious Attachment: Those of you who have this attachment style, you may avoid taking risks that lead to financial gain, such as investing in the stock market or starting a business. You also buy things you don’t need in order to impress other people. 

45% of people who are anxiously attached shop compulsively compared to 18% of securely attached people.

Avoidant Attachment: With this attachment style, it is a struggle to make financial decisions because of the tendency to distance themselves from discussing finances. People with this attachment style also tend to only rely on themselves.

A report from the Federal Reserve found that 35% of avoidant attachment individuals rack up credit card debt month-to-month, compared to only 22% of the general population.  

Fearful-Avoidant Attachment: Fearful-avoidant attachments tend to switch between reckless spending and over-the-top saving or frugality. They often want validation through shallow financial gains such as gambling or impulsive investments. 

Why a Balance of Masculine and Feminine Energy Is Needed to Handle Money:

When it comes to every area of life, we need balance. But when it comes to handling money in the most effective way possible, we need to balance our masculine and feminine energies. Money is not masculine or feminine; it’s neutral. You need to use the masculine energy inside yourself. 

How do the masculine and feminine handle money?

Masculine: Have a more structured, strategic, and logical approach to money. 

Feminine: Approaches money from a creative, intuitive, and emotional place.

If you have too much structure and no creativity or make too many emotional decisions and not enough logical decisions, your bank account won’t look like it’s overflowing.  

Hence why balancing your masculine and feminine energies is so important. You cannot create anything that generates revenue while only adopting one set of approaches; you need both structure and creativity, strategy and intuition to create something meaningful. 

There has been much critique of the feminine way of approaching money. But research shows that intuition is not useless or “woo,” and it is just as effective as when you use an analytical approach; sometimes it is even more efficient in decision-making. 

The feminine and masculine energies cannot exist without each other. These are two essential energies that are responsible for creating the universe we live in today. 

Staying in your feminine energy too much limits your potential, whereas staying in your masculine energy blocks you from receiving. It is easier for women to switch between their masculine and feminine sides since the two hemispheres of our brains are interconnected by wires that connect from left to right. 

Now… Lets Stop Sabotaging How You Handle Money

How do you feel confident when it comes to handling money? How do I recognize what causes me to financially self-sabotage? I will give you 10 strategies to help you start using your money in ways that uplevel the quality of your life. Let’s get into it!! →

Strategy 1: Have Self-Compassion and Know Your Worth

There is a main difference I want to touch on when it comes to self-compassion vs. self-esteem: self-compassion is when you give yourself love, support, and grace no matter what, whereas self-esteem relies on feeling good based off external circumstances. 

Whenever you mess up financially, your external circumstance may not be ideal, so your self-esteem takes a hit; this is where self-compassion comes to good use. 

Self-compassion keeps you motivated during times when you feel pain, fail, or feel inadequate. Self-compassion is also not the same as self-pity. Self-pity comes from a place of victimhood and involves negative self-talk. Whereas self-compassion comes from understanding and recognizing that suffering is a part of life. 

When you give yourself compassion, your self-esteem and self-worth rise, resulting in less financial self-sabotage. 

As self-worth rises, you are more likely to stand up for yourself, negotiate better, take on new challenges, and practice responsible financial decision-making.  Self-worth is so important for handling money; you charge what you’re worth, give yourself the life you deserve, and do so many other things that align with creating your dream life. 

Book Recomendations:

The Financial Mindset Fix by Joyce Carter

Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff

You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero

Strategy 2: Recognize How You Truly Feel About Money

You may be gaslighting yourself into thinking you have no harmful subconscious beliefs about money.  But it doesn’t hurt to double-check. We are often unaware of how the financial situation we grew up in or the way we were talked to about money as we grew impacts how we subconsciously think about money in the present day. 

Your environment didn’t have to be extreme poverty in order to develop limiting phrases. Even those families that are well-off often have phrases such as “money doesn’t grow on trees,” “rich people are greedy,” or “money is the root of all evil.”

Remember to have self-compassion and realize that these limiting beliefs are not your fault; it just happened to be the environment you were raised in. Always remember that you have a choice to continue with old ways of thinking or get out of your comfort zone and create new ones. Financial self-sabotage seems to cease once you recognize how you think of money affects how you treat it. 

How To Recognize How You Truly Feel About Money: 

Look at your financial habits: Look at what your financial habits are driven by. Are they driven by fear, excitement, pride, or a desire for safety? Create a mental image of money in your head, whether it’s actual dollar bills, a bank balance amount, or whatever, and notice what emotions come up. 

Look at your emotional triggers: Identify what emotions trigger certain habits such as overspending or hoarding. This helps you get to the root cause of your financial self-sabotage. (rhyme:)

Have self-compassion: Always remember that your financial situation does not define who you are. You are human, and you change. Don’t feel sorry for yourself; you’re not helpless. You are capable of changing any type of situation. 

Challenge your limiting beliefs about money: Financial self-sabotage often comes from subconscious limiting beliefs. In order to find out what your limiting beliefs are, look at what you grew up hearing about money as well as what phrases pop into your mind as you think of money. 

Book Recomendations:

Mind Over Money by Brad Klontz & Ted Klontz

Happy Money – Ken Honda

Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself – Dr. Joe Dispenza

Strategy 3: Ask Yourself What You Want For Your Future

Do you have a dream life you want to live? I’m sure you do. But what if I told you half of your financial self-sabotage comes from not being clear on your dream? You need to be 100% sure of what you want for your life. Be clear on every little detail, but focus especially on your finances.

If you want to have 400k (think big!!) saved up and invested, why are you still spending like you have no goals? You want to travel first class? What financial self-sabotage habits do you have right now that prevent you from having the overflow needed for flying first class? 

Be EXTREMELY clear. Clarity is crucial. Every time you even think of wasting money on something trivial or refusing to learn how to invest, go back to your goals for your future, and then push forward.

How to Clearly Come Up With Your Future Goals:

Reflect on Your Current State: Write down your goals, then look at what is moving you closer toward your goals and what is moving you farther from them. Keep what’s working and RID yourself of the things that are holding you back and contributing to financial self-sabotage. 

Find Your Core Values: Find what you value. Do you value traveling, having a family, and building your dream house? Identifying what you value gives you an idea of what you should work towards. 

Create a Vision Statement: Visualize the success you want to have in all the areas of your life. Specifically for the monetary area, this visualization should be so strong it comes into your mind any time you think of engaging in financial self-sabotage. 

Be Realistic… With a Bit of Delusion (Dream Biggg): Choose goals that are realistic, of course. But also choose goals that push you and make you feel a bit excited. What if you do achieve that “delusional” goal and then some? You’ll be in awe thinking, “I could’ve done so much more.”

Book Recommendations:

Designing Your Life – Bill Burnett & Dave Evans

The Big Leap – Gay Hendricks

Atomic Habits – James Clear

Strategy 4: Become Financially Literate

Becoming financially literate is the number 1 way to defeat financial self-sabotage. If you knew all the different ways to use your money to create more money, how to use debt to your advantage, or how to budget in the most effective way possible, financial self-sabotage wouldn’t feel appealing. 

Financial literacy provides you with the knowledge needed to handle debt, invest wisely, and save effectively, leading to financial independence. 

This should be one of your most important goals. Learning how money works in the physical world and all the technicalities of it gives you confidence to handle everything that comes your way

How Do You Become Financially Literate?:

Learn the easy stuff: You first need a deep understanding of saving, budgeting, investing, retirement planning, debt management, etc. Learn about the different types of savings accounts, and all the different types of investing. 

Read books on money or finance: If you love reading like me, you will enjoy this one. Reading books written by people whos financial state you admire is the best move. 

Create a budget: Track your income and expenses. Part of financial literacy is the responsibility of making sure every dollar is put to good use. 

Talk to professionals: If you don’t trust yourself enough or just want expert guidance, talk to a financial advisor or planner. Nothing is wrong with that. Just remember you have to pay for their direction. 

Actually apply what you learn: Luckily this isn’t the kind of useless-for-everyday-life information that was taught in school. So don’t just learn it and forget. Take lessons and tips you learn and actively apply them wherever possible. 

Book Recommendations

I Will Teach You to Be Rich – Ramit Sethi

The Simple Path to Wealth – JL Collins

Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki

Strategy 5: Create & Automate Systems

This is great for the people who forget to set aside money for their savings or investments. This is an extra hedge against financial self-sabotage habits. You just set it and forget it. 

But this could also apply to budgeting. Always make time to create your weekly budget. Create a system around how much money you save, invest, and spend. 

How to Create and Automate Systems:

Build a realistic budget: Actually tailor your budget to your exact lifestyle. Keep in mind how much money you make, any expenses, and anything you want to save up for. This itself is a system for using money effectively. 

Automate savings and bill payments: This is an amazing feature. You always make sure some money is being put into savings, and it prevents overdraft fees. The good thing is many bills are already automatically fulfilled.

Have an accountability system: This is a more indirect system, but it does wonders. Tell your family members about your goals, and tell them to always remind you of them whenever you engage in financial self-sabotage behaviors. This works so well because it gets rid of secrecy that drives self-sabotage. 

Build an emergency fund: This is a security system. It will always give peace of mind to knwo that you have at least 3 months of expenses covered. Always add money to your emergency fund, try to get it to 1 year of expenses covered. 

Book Recommendations

I Will Teach You to Be Rich – Ramit Sethi (intentional repeat)

Your Money or Your Life – Vicki Robin

Get Good with Money – Tiffany Aliche (The Budgetnista)

Strategy 6: Develop an Abundance Mindset

It is so important to realize how abundant this world is. This is great for getting rid of financial self-sabotage. 

When you see how resourceful and endless our universe really is, you start to look at your financial situation in this moment as just one stage of life. Your situation right now does not mean that’s how it’ll be forever. 

By adopting the abundance mindset, you can get rid of any limiting beliefs that hinder your financial growth and success. Once you believe that there is more than enough money for everyone, you don’t feel threatened by anyone else’s success. 

How to Develop an Abundance Mindset:

Have a daily gratitude practice: We have so much more than we realize. Sometimes all it takes is a pen, paper, and some solitude to realize that. Write down every single thing you have. It doesn’t matter how trivial it is; if you feel gratitude, write it down. You’ll see how much you’ve been taking for granted

Invest in your financial education: Learn something new about finance each week, and you’ll start to see the many ways people are earning money and putting their own money to work for them. 

Monitor scarcity mindset Talk carefully: It is so important to monitor any scarcity beliefs that appear in your mind. Change the belief into something more abundant. For example, let’s say this phrase, “Money is so hard to make,” pops into your head; replace it with something like this, “Money comes to me easily.” Remember, you’re trying to change the way your subconscious mind views money. 

Book Recommendations:

Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill

The Soul of Money – Lynne Twist

Ask and It Is Given – Esther & Jerry Hicks

Strategy 7: Act IMMEDIATELY on Any Debt or Investments

Lastly, take care of any outstanding debt and make investments you feel called to. Debt is a common stressor; the only way to get rid of it is to pay it off. And if you feel called to invest, whether it be in the stock market or yourself, do it. 

Get rid of all the cognitive resources that go towards reminding yourself of paying off debt. Free yourself from the worries of missing out on an investment opportunity. Not paying off debt and not investing when you have the means to are probably some of the biggest financial self-sabotage habits. 

Break them as soon as possible. 

How to Act IMMEDIATELY on Any Debt or Investments:

Get professional help: If you are in a really bad situation, getting professional advice will always be recommended. Look into financial counseling or therapy to identify any root causes of financial blocks.

Recognize and break destructive patterns: Identify and change the habits that hold you back from succeeding. These habits include overspending, not saving, not investing, accumulating unnecessary debt, and making emotional decisions. 

Book Recommendations:

The Total Money Makeover – Dave Ramsey

The Psychology of Money – Morgan Housel

Die With Zero – Bill Perkins

I wrote this article for both men and women, but mostly for women. I believe it’s so important for women to fix their relationship with money since ⅔ of America’s wealth will be in our hands in 4 years’ time. We are capable of handling money and using it wisely, regardless of what you may hear people say.