Article Helping clients manage long-term financial planning stress

If you’re an adviser who’s ever sat across from a client staring blankly at their retirement projections, you’ll know that long-term planning can trigger a tidal wave of overwhelm.

I’ve spent years researching financial behaviours, and I can assure you: feeling overwhelmed when it comes to money is perfectly normal.

And let’s be honest. It’s not just about the spreadsheets or the clever risk graphs. More often, it’s the mental load: the swirl of uncertainty, avoidance, or even shame that causes people to freeze or disengage.

Advisers can play a crucial role in helping clients navigate these emotions, but only if we’re ready to meet them at a human level first.

What’s driving financial overwhelm?

One thing that comes up time and again, in research and most recently in our Money:Mindshift podcast conversation with Catherine Morgan (a financial coach and educator) titled ‘How to worry about money’, is that money worries are rarely just about pounds and pence.

Clients’ emotional responses to financial planning can often stem from deeper places: their sense of identity, ingrained beliefs about self-worth, or family patterns picked up long before they met you.

We can't not worry about money. It's too important. It’s too intertwined with who we are. But, we can worry in a better ways.

If a client is paralysed by overwhelm, it’s likely not just a sign of low financial literacy. More likely, their mind is doing its level best to protect them from making a ‘wrong’ decision or reliving a past mistake.

When you spot these patterns, you have a chance to build trust and move the conversation from ‘just numbers’ to what really matters.

What advisers should know about stress and overwhelm

Stress is when your client is juggling competing demands and just about keeping up. Overwhelm is when they’re no longer coping: when the conversation about “flexi-access drawdown” or “market volatility” has left them ready to pack up and run.

When clients are overwhelmed, they may become indecisive, withdrawn, or simply unable to articulate what help they need from you. It’s probably not a sign of disengagement; it’s their nervous system’s way of waving a white flag.

A practical reframe of emotions for advisers

So, what can advisers do when overwhelm turns up in the room? Here’s where Neil Bage’s – financial behavioural coach and keynote speaker – advice is so valuable (expressed in recent Money:Mindshift episode ‘How to compare yourself').

He said: ‘The easiest way to talk about emotions is that emotions are data. The brain takes in data right through our senses... And when it takes in that data, it creates on the fly an emotional response. And the emotional response is another data point that is a reaction to the first bit of data that went into the engine.

‘So all of these emotions are just data points. And we need to look at them as data. As information that we can pause, think: “Oh, why do I feel like this?” and then do something about it.’

For advisers, this means learning to spot and normalise emotional signals. Overwhelm isn’t a barrier to be bulldozed; it’s a cue to slow down, acknowledge what’s happening in their lives (and minds), and offer clients the psychological space they need.

Three ways advisers can support clients in overwhelm

1. Name and validate the emotion

Start by helping clients label what it is they’re really feeling. Respond with something like: ‘It sounds like this is feeling overwhelming, does that resonate?’ Giving language to emotion takes some of the sting out and creates space for honest discussion.

2. Pause for “non-doing”

It’s tempting to power through with more data or technical explanations, but when clients are overwhelmed, less is more. Encourage a pause: a moment of “non-doing”. Sometimes that’s as simple as offering a break, stepping outside for a few minutes, or just giving permission not to decide everything today.

3. Use curiosity and small steps

Move the conversation from judgment (‘Why aren’t you more engaged?’) to curiosity (‘What’s feeling hardest right now?’, or: ‘If we just picked one thing to focus on today, what would feel most manageable?’). Break big decisions into bite-sized actions. Small wins could restore confidence and help clients move out of paralysis.

In summary

Financial overwhelm is a natural response to complex, emotionally loaded decisions. Advisers have the potential to make a real difference by recognising overwhelm, validating it, and supporting clients to process and move through it. One step at a time.