Practices for Overcoming Under-Earning

Dear Money Adventurer,

Under-loving. Over-giving, under-receiving. Under-no-ing, over-yes-ing. It has everything to do with your experience of self-worth—whether or not this is reflected in your salary or income.

Finding and claiming your sense of value is a lifelong process. It unfolds over time in baby steps and leaps and then more baby steps.

Overcoming underearning requires both internal and external work.

For today’s money teaching, we offer you some of the internal practices that my community and I have found most helpful in growing our sense of value and overcoming underearning from the inside out:

1. Healthy boundaries, boundaries, and more boundaries around what we deem vital, sacred, and solely ours. Practice the Art of the Elegant No.
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2. Know yourself, through and through. Know what you’re great at and what you suck at. Remember (and repeat as often as you need): “My job is to be myself. Nothing more, nothing less.” No need to contort yourself to try to be something that you are not. Stay true to yourself.
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3. Notice, delete and reframe all that negative self-talk (I’m not smart, I’m not good enough, I have nothing to say) and replace it with positive thought patterns: I’m smart. I’m capable. My voice needs to be heard.
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4. Focus on your successes. Every little step you take is a victory. Celebrate everything. This is how huge change happens.
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5. “So-called money mistakes” happen to all of us. They are ripe learning opportunities, and often redirect us to our true gifts and the right route for us. Milk them. Keep fine-tuning, learning and adjusting as you move forward.
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6. Seek out the good in your life. Notice and appreciate what you already have now. There will always be more goals on the horizon. But please pause and let in what you are grateful for now.
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7. Fill your cup. Self-care is amazing and 100 percent necessary. Make it a top priority, whatever it looks like, to you: hikes, morning tea, meditation, journaling, dancing, friends, community. Many of these gifts cost nothing and give so much.
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8. Let go of old parts of yourself that no longer serve you. Acknowledge and honor them. Give them a voice, a ritual to thank them and let them go. Then honor what new behaviors, habits and identities you are stepping into.
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9. Be willing to be uncomfortable. Author Barbara Huson (formerly Stanny) told me once that the number one prerequisite to making more money is this willingness to be uncomfortable. I would add that we feel uncomfortable when we’re shifting any pattern. It’s a good sign. Challenge yourself to stretch, dare to be brave. Stay with yourself through the discomfort.
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10. Trust is a muscle to be used. Use this muscle as often as you can and it will get stronger. Trust your own timing. Trust that you can make mistakes and fine tune. Trust that you can make good life and money decisions. Practice trust in yourself and in your life.
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11. Our value ripens with age. Time is on our side with this one. Maturing can be a beautiful thing.

(This is an edited/updated excerpt from my book: The Art of Money: A Life-Changing Guide to Financial Happiness (published by Parallax Press, 2016)

So, which practice(s) are you going to focus on today?

Pick one or two and start slowly and lovingly…

I am with you,

P.S. My three-phase financial therapy method includes Money Healing, Money Practices and Money Maps. This list of overcoming under-earning practices comes from the Money Healing realm where the internal work resides. We delve into the external practices of claiming your value by moving through money ceilings, learning how to work with cash flow dips and creating sustainable business models in the Money Practices and Money Maps phases of my financial therapy work. All three of these phases are taught in my Art of Money: 3-month financial therapy program, which I will be running again in mid-January, 2025! To get on the waitlist, go here.