Six Habits for Earning More
Helping you thrive in 2025...
If you haven't already checked out my previous post, give yourself permission to check it out and get creative with how you might be able to quintuple your income this year! It might sound like a crazy leap, but we can’t be afraid to stretch our minds and at least contemplate what’s possible. Just keep thinking about how and why we can be of greater value to more people in the world and why we can earn more for the right reasons.
Now on to the six habits...
1. Charge more for what is easier!
While it may sound counterintuitive, the easier something is for you to do, the more you should expect to charge for it. This is especially true if what you offer delivers immense results for those you serve. After all, it's your gift!
It can be very easy for us, especially as artists and educators, to think we can't charge more if it isn't whatever we or others would define as "hard work" or even if it's way less actual work than what we're used to being paid for. Moreover, we also can fall into the trap of thinking we can't charge enough when something actually is hard because we know we're not as good as someone else out there.
So it’s very easy to find yourself feeling damned if you do and damned if you don’t if you’re not confident in yourself and your value. So don't be afraid to confidently charge what you really want for what you feel really great doing, especially when you put the lifetime value of the results you deliver into perspective.
2. Take Responsibility!
Whatever happens in life, we can't let what we can't control be in control of our business. Being in business for yourself is rarely the ride down easy street people broadcast on social media. Not everyone will support you. Not everyone will be your client. People will ghost you. Surprise expenses or refunds will come up. Market conditions will change. You might become a victim of a grave societal or personal injustice.
There may always be someone else to legitimately blame, but as business owners, the buck ultimately has to stop with us. Taking responsibility is not about being guilty and living a shameful life of penitence. It's about being in the habit of accepting the circumstances for what they are and being willing to decide on a new course of action to help right the ship or to just get the job done. We can't control the outside world, but we can position ourselves so that whatever does happen doesn't have to directly matter as much.
If you haven’t already, check out my recent post forecasting 2025 so you can be prepared to weather any inevitable challenges.
3. Find People Who Can Help You!
If you don't know how to do something, get help.
This may also be the decision you need to make when it's time take responsibility for a situation. There are plenty of people out there who will want to help you, but you will have to ask, and you will have to have a very clear reason or purpose for asking. You'll likely also have to ask people who aren't the most comfortable to ask such as donors you don’t know, or relatives you rarely talk to.
One exercise idea is to make a list of every possible person you can think of you might be able to ask for help with your business. For each person you think of, note whether they can help you financially (e.g. a gift or a loan), help you with referrals (e.g. know possible clients or know people who will buy tickets), or help you with specific types of work you need done (e.g. web design or accounting).
Asking for the sale, asking for the higher price, and asking for help are the three things we have to continually keep on getting better at in order to succeed.
4. Maintain a Winning Attitude!
Unless you quit, there is no such thing as true failure. Everything is a win or an opportunity to learn and then win. Some use the phrase "failing upwards" to describe the process of allowing a lesson learned to propel your next level of growth. And when it comes to our growth, there's nowhere to go but up!
And sometimes even more important than learning from our failings is making sure we're not failing to fully recognize and honor our wins as we get them. Since every business simply gets told "no" more often than "yes," especially when first starting out, we need all the good affirmations and positive feedback we can get. If you haven't already, take a moment to write down ALL of your wins, large or small, from the past year!
5. Find Gratitude in All Things.
It's not always easy to find gratitude in all things, but no matter what we experience, if we're open to finding something about it to be grateful for, we'll be in a state of mind that is more open to finding better solutions to what we're experiencing. Hence Wallace Wattles wrote in The Science of Getting Rich, "Because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude." For example, the lessons learned during my own early entrepreneurial failures became opportunities to grow and to be able to then help others experiencing similar challenges.
A little over three years ago, I lost Alberich, one of my two chihuahuas I've had for over ten years. It was a sudden, unexpected loss, and finding gratitude for such a tragedy is challenging. But I can at least be grateful for all the lives he touched over the years with his unconditional loving spirit we all could learn from. Challenge yourself to look back on some of your biggest challenges and even tragedies from the past year and write in a journal what about it you can be grateful for.
6. Continue to Invest in Yourself!
The late Jim Rohn often said, "Work hard on your job and you'll make a living. Work hard on yourself and you'll make a fortune."
Working hard on ourselves means investing in our ongoing growth, whether it is developing new skills, upgrading our environment, gaining more wisdom, hiring the help we need, or being willing to do whatever else is necessary for our next level of growth. One of the greatest investments I've made over the years was hiring coaches and spending a lot of time studying the work of the coaches, mentors, and thought leaders I aspire to emulate.
Elite players across many fields and industries, including entrepreneurs, have coaches and mentors for at least one aspect of their life or work. The inner game between our ears is often the biggest game we need help with—we can't solve our problems with the same mindset that is often causing our problems! A coach or mentor can help us expand our thinking so we can see more of what we can't see so we actually can get "unstuck". No one can get to the greatness they want to achieve without the guidance of someone way ahead of them.
When an opportunity to grow presents itself in your life and you truly want it, consider making 2025 the year you're not afraid to step into it, even if it requires setting aside extra time or pursuing financial resources beyond what you might think are possible. As Raymond Holliwell wrote in his book Working with the Law, one of the books I've been studying during my growth, "No mind can be conscious of a need or a desire unless the possibility of its fulfillment already exists." So If you want it, there must be a way to manifest it!
If you want help, it’s not too late to grab one of my remaining spots for the new year. Just send me a message and let’s talk about which of my offers might be best for you.
