Working hard feels good. It’s a necessary ingredient to reaching financial bliss. However, working harder, will not make you richer. It will make you trapped, defeated, and ultimately, makes you give up on your financial dreams because they will seem unattainable.
Bold statement? Perhaps. But the “working harder solution” is such an epidemic that I can give you endless examples of how it destroys freedom. Here’s one; I intentionally chose a client who earned a lot. It’s easier to see the truth when it looks exaggerated.
I have a client named Walker. He has two special needs children and a lovely wife. He earns $255,000 a year. Sometime more! Yet, he is living paycheck to paycheck. No, they aren’t taking fancy trips, and they don’t live in the Plaza hotel, but they are always one paycheck away from “close to broke.” What gives?
For starters, at an intellectual level, Walker knows that he makes a lot of money, but he feels that doesn’t make enough to get ahead. Walker’s definition of getting ahead is to pay bills easily, take family vacations, and, in a nutshell, not have to worry about money.
He felt that they are just scrimping by. So, he decided to “work a little harder” to make his financial wish list come true. (How seductively trapping can this thought be. Do not bend to this siren call! She is singing lies.) So, he works harder. Translation: he is working overtime! He is dog tired at the end of the day, and he doesn’t have time to do much else. If you felt like this what would you do: cook dinner or order take-out?
Walker orders take-out. On the surface this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but because he feels this way all the time, he does it all the time. The take-out and other things he buys out of convenience, simply fill the call of “I don’t have the energy or time to do xyz.” But they don’t make him feel like he is enjoying the fruits of his labor. So, by the time the weekend rolls around he feels he deserves a treat for working so hard. So, he spends more. But the fun of spending isn’t even that fun because it comes with a cherry of guilt. Then the stress of having to pay the bills. This is the cycle that is caused by working too hard!