The Fastest Way To Make Money This Year
Tis the time of year where I have received my tax return and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the amount of money I brought in last year was relatively the same as the year before, HOWEVER, the amount that I MADE was more. As I reflected back on the year to see the difference to previous years and I realized that my profit was due to one main habit:
NOT SPENDING ON STUFF I DIDN’T NEED
When I first started my business I had no idea what I was doing, but I also was not aware of my unfortunate relationship to money. I’ve blogged about this before, but I’ve come to realize that while I have a hard time receiving anything, money was one of those things that when I did receive it I felt I had to get rid of it immediately. Through meditation and self coaching, I’ve come to recognize the thought that precedes the behavior of spending and usually it is a discomfort of seeing money in my bank account. Because I grew up associating money with greed, bad people, and assholeish behavior it’s no wonder I didn’t want it anywhere near me. Combine that with my feelings of not measuring up and I found myself spending money on things I thought would make my value as a human increase. Shocking, isn’t it, that that did not happen.
In previous years, I would spend $500+ on clothes, $1500+ on furniture, and $250+ on shit that I thought I needed (makeup, waxing appointments, shoes) PER MONTH. I thought I needed the fanciest wardrobe and the newest furniture for clients to value what I do. I thought I needed to wear makeup to show up on camera. I thought I needed to wax my eyebrows. I thought I needed to have new shoes, new dresses, and new things to do my job. This provided me a lovely outlet to send the money that felt uncomfortable keeping.
How I worked through all that last year was the following:
I started by reading books about money. Specifically, Get Rich, Lucky Bitch by Denise Duffield Thomas and Profit First by Mike Michalowicz.
I meditated using the To Be Magnetic courses about confronting abundance and scarcity mindset.
I started paying attention to how it would feel in my body when I’d receive money
I started paying attention to how it felt when I would be adding stuff to the cart
I put my goals in front of my face in the form of a poster to remind me what I was saving for
Since I knew I would be more spendy SEEING the money in my bank account, I set myself up with some investments so once my account hits anything over $5000 I put it into those accounts. This ensures I don’t see the money AND my money is making me money.
I started tracking my wardrobe vs. education in the form of a spreadsheet so that I would keep my priorities straight.
I start to pay attention to WHAT I was buying and what I was feeling when I bought it. This allowed me to then go deeper on questions: Why THESE clothes? Why those products? Why this piece of furniture? What do you think it will provide you vs. what it really will?
This is why, it will never matter how much money you bring in if you don’t manage your relationship with it. More money DOES mean more problems, but only if those problems existed in this first place.
