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One sneakily simple way to make more money

By on April 14, 2014
kate

By Kate Northrup

There are a lot of things we want more of in life.

We want more love, more time, more sleep, more adventures, and yes, we often want more money.

And one of the best ways to have more money is often not only the simplest and most obvious, it’s also the most frequently overlooked.

The people who need this strategy the most, those in the craziest of financial quagmires, often skip this simple step because they think it sounds way too rudimentary. I mean, seriously, making more money has to be hard and complicated, right? WRONG.

Here’s the secret sauce when it comes to having more of anything:

WHAT WE PUT OUR ATTENTION ON GROWS.

Whether you’re waiting for your perennial bed to blossom or desiring more digits in your bank account, the same principle applies.

Kids require attention in order to grow up relatively well-adjusted and functional, right? They need feeding and cuddling and housing. And more than that, they need love.

Call me gauche, but I believe the same is true with money.

So let’s say you want to make an extra $1,000 per month. Perhaps you’ve already thought of some strategies to put those extra bucks in your handbag.

You could:

  • raise your rates
  • ask for a raise
  • launch a new product/service
  • switch jobs to something higher paying

These are all awesome ideas and they may very well yield fabulous results for you. But if you dive in with these strategies alone, your increased income might slip right through your well-manicured fingers.

Here’s what I see a lot: People who want to make more money but don’t lovingly steward the money they already have.

(I know because I used to be one of these people. There’s no finger-wagging here, trust me.)

THIS CONDITION, WHICH WE SHALL CALL FINANCIAL NEGLIGENCE, CAN SHOW UP IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS:

  • holding on to checks for weeks without depositing them
  • not submitting expense reports for reimbursement in a timely manner
  • not invoicing clients for work you’ve already done until weeks or months after you did the work
  • never really knowing how much money you make (in a given week, month, or year)
  • not checking your bank account balance on a regular basis, so you generally have no idea how much you have
  • ignoring credit card, bank, investment, or other statements having to do with money

So what’s the antidote to this insidious, incredibly abundance-squelching disease?

PAYING LOVING ATTENTION TO THE MONEY WE ALREADY HAVE IS THE FIRST STEP TO MAKING MORE OF IT.

The Universe, God, Goddess, Yahweh, Life, the Divine (fill in your word for that which is bigger than us) won’t provide you with more until you show that you’re already doing great with what you’ve got. Create a strong, loving container and then, whaddya know? Suddenly there’s a lot more where that came from.

Guess what? The first step is NOT, in fact, any of the following: going out there and hustling more, working more hours, pouring all of your creative fuel into a new business, or proving to your boss or your clients that you deserve a raise. What a relief!

The first step is simply paying attention to what you already have in a loving way.

Remember, if you want more, you’ve got to give TLC to what you’ve got.

HERE ARE A FEW SIMPLE IDEAS FOR LOVING UP YOUR MONEY:

  1. Check your bank account balance every morning and give some gratitude for what you’ve got.
  2. Line up all the bills in your wallet in numerical order, with the Presidents all facing the same direction (ideally toward you when you pull out a bill).
  3. Track your income in a notebook, a spreadsheet, with Quicken or Mint.com, or in some other way that feels good to you.

 

Kate Northrup is a professional freedom seeker and creative entrepreneur. She created financial freedom for herself at the age of 28 through building a team of more than 1,000 wellness entrepreneurs in the network marketing industry. Her philosophy is that if you free yourself financially you can be fully present to your purpose on the planet. Her first book, Money: A Love Story with Hay House is NOW AVAILABLE! She continues to mentor entrepreneurs in creating financial freedom. Find out more and take her free quiz to find out what your relationship with money says about you at http://www.katenorthrup.com.

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