A simple exercise that can help grow your income: add a zero to your current income and write out, in detail, where that money would go.
There’s a simple exercise that can meaningfully increase your income if you actually practice it.
It comes down to adding a zero to your current income and writing out, in detail, exactly how you’d allocate that money.
Say someone currently earns $1,000 a month. So they write down, on paper, that their income is $10,000. Then they need to realistically map out where and how that money would be spent.
Ideas like “I’d give $8,000 to charity” are better left aside for now. Imagine that $10k is your net income, already after tithing and after money set aside for charity.
Your job is to train your mind to accept that you’re already managing this money, and to work out in detail what your life would actually look like at that income level.
You write it out on paper, literally:
- $600 to my retired parents
- $400 on equipment for…
- $500 to rent this particular office for…
- $600 to hire a staff member for…
You need clarity down to the last dollar — where exactly and how you’d allocate your new $10k income.
It doesn’t matter much how wisely or correctly you spend that money on paper. What matters is that you get used to that order of magnitude.
It’s worth repeating this exercise until, in a sense, you get so used to these numbers that you start to discount them and treat them very calmly.
When you later think about a $10k income, your mind starts saying: “yeah, that’s realistic with this team and these products. I’d put that money into these areas…”
Why does this exercise work so well?
Our brain solves the problems we give it. If we want to learn to see opportunities around us worth $1,000, our thinking will notice everything connected to that income level.
But if we want to reach a new financial level, we need to train our brain to handle $10k a month (even if only on paper), and gradually you’ll notice your attention starts latching onto opportunities and tools that could bring in entirely different money.