You are your own best authority when it comes to choosing income-producing strategies, because the most successful strategies are the ones that immediately feel aligned with your values.

If it feels true and right for you, then it probably is. Use your emotional and mental guidance systems to continually improve your mindset and actions.

If the strategy isn’t producing good results after a solid month or two of true commitment, change your strategy or focus. 

Ask a friend, colleague, or coach if they see something that isn’t working that you may not be objective enough to identify for yourself. 

Here’s how I set myself up to win when I need more moola:

• Get very clear on what you’re going to do with the money. Focusing on money without emotionally being connected to what you’re going to do with it won’t have enough magnetic pull to make it happen.

Whether you want a nice nest egg or a new car, you’ve got to really want it.

• Make a serious decision that the money is coming now. Not “hopefully” soon, in a few months, or sometime this year. Now. But be willing to stay in the game for as long as it takes.
• Don’t force your brain into finding the “way” you will increase your income. Sit down and set up a creativity session with yourself, as if it were a meeting with your team. Invite your intuition to this session. 

If the answer doesn’t come right away… don’t fret. It’ll come when you least expect it. 

You can also round-table ideas with other people. Stay open but not attached to landing on the perfect solution.

• Accept your current financial state. You don’t have to like it, but stop resisting it. Let go of any guilt, shame, or fear. 

Then step into your adult shoes and decide what you want to do about it and how you want to feel while doing it. 

No matter what actions you take, you can only produce new income when you expect to. Change your perspective about your ability to turn around your situation… and you will.

If you’ve put a lot of pressure on yourself about bringing in new income because of debt, try one or all of the following:

• Accept the fact that you have debt. Who cares how you got there?! You have to let go of shame, guilt, or fear about having debt in order to get rid of it. 

Debt isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s what you think about debt that’s the real problem. It’s hard to feel powerful and confident when you’re shaming yourself.

Some of the wealthiest people on the planet have more debt that you can fathom. So… freaking… what?!

Learn from the choices and habits that got you there and correct them.

• Make a plan to pay off your debt. Even if you can only pay $5 above the minimum amount due each month, a plan will empower you. Any action toward paying off debt feels good. This will motivate you and most likely lead to fresh income ideas.
• See yourself as someone with no debt. Act like a person who feels free about money. I’m not saying to go and spend beyond your means. I mean feel free internally. 

Keep focused on the goal. Start imagining what it would be like to have MORE than enough money. Get used to having a cash cushion in your mind’s eye. As if that’s normal for you. Then live into that vision, one step at a time.

• Get help. Ask someone who’s objective—a coach or a financial advisor—for support and ideas. 

When you’re stressed, it’s hard to see solutions when they’re right in front of you. There are dozens of ways to handle debt. But remember, you have to choose something that feels good to you. 

Other important stuff to know about money:

You and your life partner don’t have to have the same priorities. You just have to be very clear that you both get to have your needs met. In the end, you’ll always be able to find a solution that’ll appease everyone’s behavioral style and financial needs.

Having financial freedom is not luck or good fortune. It’s about clear intentions, commitment, planning, focus, and most of all fun. 

Financial intelligence isn’t complicated. You don’t have to be good at numbers, but you do need to know them. 

Most people are more savvy at this than they think. 

Plans and strategies can be fun if you tailor them to your needs. My first financial plan was laid out on a flip chart with colored markers and photos. Not exactly the norm, right? But it worked for me at the time. Now I have a wealth plan on paper with dates that I update each year.

Now is always the best time to inventory your current money beliefs, practices, and structures.

If you don’t like what you see, do something different in the next week to get the ball rolling.

But if you want to attract more clients and sales, you’ve got to clean up your money game.

How do you learn a new game? One step at a time.

You can do this.

I never thought I’d stop living week to week, client to client. I never thought I’d be able to own a house, let alone three.

I never thought I’d have hundreds of clients in a coaching program at once.

I never thought I’d have a 7-figure business.

I never thought I’d break the pattern of being a broke entrepreneur. 

But I did. 

And it all started with a change of mind.

The strategies that brought me success came from that change of mind.

And anyone can change their mind at any time.