The Myth of Six Figure Success

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I am a nosy person. I embody the archetype of the Detective and I love that part of myself. It makes me a solid researcher, and it makes me a good listener.

Want to know when I really get nosy? When someone says they’d like to work with me. Then I get super nosy about money. One of the first questions that I ask them is how much money they want to make.

Did that make you uncomfortable? Have you really thought about what you want to earn in your business? A specific number that you would work toward each month?

Want to hear something surprising? Most people don’t have an immediate answer to the question. You may say you want to be successful or you want a business like someone else whom you know, but my question is about how you want to define financial success on your own terms.

Sure, there are lots of elements of success: autonomy, significance, recognition, fulfillment, etc. But let’s just talk about the money part today.

Everybody and their cat will tell you (and sell you) that you should be shooting for six (or seven!) figures if you want to be considered successful. That’s their definition (and I’d ask each and every one of them to be utterly transparent about how they’ve done it – if they’ve done it – before I’d buy what they are offering).

What’s your monthly earnings goal? More importantly, why do you want to make that specific number? Do you have a set of financial needs that you wish to meet? What would you do with the money if you earned it? Or do you want to prove something to someone else or even the world at large? Do you have that goal because someone else said “that’s what successful people make?”

Here’s what might shock you: it doesn’t matter what your financial goal is.

What matters is that you know why that goal is important to you. Just you.

Want to know the two secrets to attaining your financial goal? Make sure it’s internally motivated and that you deeply believe that it’s an amount that you are able to earn. I don’t know why this is true, but I’ve seen it over and over again. If you want to reach your financial goal in a graceful way, without striving and an exhausting amount of struggle, only listen to your core. It knows your worth and you resonate from that core when you share what you offer.

Letting your inner core help you set your financial goals will bring you a healthy money consciousness that creates income as a natural flow from your inner strengths. If you need help with this, Nona Jordan is my go-to coach on money and worth. She’s brilliant and gifted in this area.

All of the blueprints and marketing tricks in the world will fall completely flat without doing this fundamental work on worth and recognizing your internal goals first. Or worse, they may start to generate revenue but you won’t be able to sustain it or even retain the earnings that you make.

Next time you catch yourself thinking “I should be making…” Ask yourself “Why?” Then be your own Detective in encouraging your inner voice to answer. You’re very likely to find great relief in discovering that your true goals are something profoundly personal. When your let your core worth shine, that’s when you’ll enjoy authentic profits.

By Laurie Foley

I'm Laurie Foley and I help solo professionals like you discover your natural brand so that you can get clear, get noticed and get clients. Please request your free copy of The Inner Brandifesto, my popular guidebook full of brand-building exercises.