Break Through Your Internal Income Barriers

Many professionals know they are not earning to their potential. They make a living, yet earn less than they need and want.

While many external factors may be to blame for not making enough money, under earning is a pattern of chronically earning below one’s potential. Amazingly, the resulting income ceiling many fight against turns out to be internally constructed.

If you are under earning and want to change that, examine your financial belief systems. Otherwise, when it comes to making money, beliefs that remain unconscious may cause you to sabotage yourself.

Perhaps you don’t negotiate as well as you ought to or you don’t maintain the level of visibility that your job requires. These are a few small ways in which many people undersell themselves and cause under earning.

Many people were raised with a lot of negative beliefs about finance. Children exposed to parents who fought about money may want very little to do with money as adults. These adults may be very bright and highly educated, yet when it comes to discussing compensation, a large pit wells up in their stomachs, keeping them silent. The child in them wants to stay as far away as possible from this money stuff.

Other people grew up hearing very negative messages about the wealthy. While this may have been a form of sour grapes on our parents’ part, the message was clear: It’s better to be good and poor than rich and evil.

The problem with thinking negatively about the wealthy is this: Why would you allow yourself to become that which you (unconsciously) despise? It may sound dramatic, yet many professionals are very conflicted about money. As they reach higher and higher career levels, these childhood messages about wealth often come back to haunt them.

People unconsciously hold on to belief systems by finding examples to reinforce them. If this sounds like you, a great exercise for changing how you feel about wealth is to actively look for positive examples of wealth in the media and to keep a running list. Train yourself to notice when wealthy people do great things with their money. By tracking examples that bear out this belief, you will validate a new, healthier outlook about wealth.