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What’s the number one topic found in self improvement? Have you ever stopped and thought about it? There is one topic that comes up in nearly every book and blog that has ever been produced in the self help genre and, not surprisingly, its money and finances. Everybody wants to know how to make more money. Some people say they just have to imagine money coming to them, others say you can get rich by affiliate sales, while still others say the secret is to write a book about how to get rich ;). Well, I’m not a millionaire so I can’t tell you how to get rich. I can tell you that there is certainly a secret to it, but I can also tell you that money isn’t that important either way.

Your Bank Account Isn’t Your Problem

There are many self help readers and seminar attendees out there who like to talk about personal development and “growth,” but what is the number one thing they are after? Money. When you really think about it, it seems fairly bass-akwards. We want more money, and we seem to know that we can get it by improving ourselves, but what we truly seek to improve is how we get the money. In other words, our thoughts and actions are the problem, resulting in the symptom of a meager bank account. Do we change our thoughts and actions? No, we try to change the bank account. Once again we find ourselves chasing cures for our symptoms and not our problems.

You can’t blame humans for this kind of thinking, it really is how we’ve been taught to live, especially if you grew up in America. We grew up with an “American Dream” that told us to go out, work hard, make something of ourselves and we’d be successful. We’ve been taught that for an action to be deemed useful, you must have something to show for it. No results, no success, no good. Because of this type of thinking we’ve learned to tackle our problems from the standpoint of the quickest possible results. If we want to loose weight, we try to fix the fat instead of our diet. If we want to make more money, we try to fix the lack of money instead of why we don’t have enough.

In your search for money you must begin by realizing that a lack of money is not your problem and therefore the cure cannot be to have more money. Your bank account may indeed be meager, but rest assured that if you are unhappy when poor, you will be unhappy when you are rich. The problem is an emotional one, not a financial one.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that money has no use, or even that money isn’t a good goal to have, but it isn’t what personal development is about. Self improvement is about improving (shocking, I know) yourself, not your bank account. It isn’t out of the self improvement realm to want financial freedom because, let’s face it, with less time spent on making money, more time can be spent making yourself a better person. There’s only one problem; if you don’t make the time to improve yourself now, do you really think you’re going to make the time once you’re a millionaire? The answer, sadly, is probably not. If you’re not willing to put action to your desires now, you won’t be willing to do it when you have all the time and money in the world.

Run the Race to Win the Prize

Most people don’t like to hear this, I know. Most people who read self help blogs and books want to hear about how money is easy to get and how they can become rich from home for just working a few hours a week. They don’t like hearing that making money requires effort, but it does. I’m not saying that you must work and slave your life away, I’m saying that even if your plan is to win the lottery, you have to get up and buy a ticket. (Or as Tracy Turnblad would say, “You have to run the race to win the prize.”) People don’t want to be told that the goals they have set cannot be achieved immediately and easily. Why, because everyday that we go without seeing any results is one more day that we feel as if we’ve failed. Most readers want to know how to achieve the maximum result with the minimum time and effort. I’m encouraged by the fact that, if you’ve read this far down, you’re not one of those readers and there is hope for you yet.

I know that my opinion on this matter will be an unpopular one, but my goal isn’t to be popular, it is to be truthful and helpful. As David Mamet would say, “Tell the truth, it’s the easiest thing to remember.” If this isn’t what you wanted to hear about your financial situation there are plenty of blogs out there willing to tell you what you want to hear. I just don’t happen to run one of those.

The Secret to Getting Rich

The truth is that money comes and goes; it’s transitory simply by the virtue of being money. The only reason you save it, is to spend it. The only reason you earn it, is to spend it and the only way to get it is by providing a value that someone, somewhere would be willing to pay for. And there you have it, the secret to getting rich. Want to hear it again?

There are only two ways to make money: Steal it, or earn it.

There is only one way to earn money: Provide a value or service that someone, somewhere, will be willing to pay for.

Not the answer you were hoping for? Sorry. All the visualization in the world can’t help you if you don’t plan on doing either of those things. So knowing that, what do we do with that information? You improve yourself and your skills to the point at which you have something of value to offer. That’s where self improvement and finance meet. You must create within yourself the skills to provide some sort of value that the world at large will be willing to pay for. Despite what anyone will tell you, there is no shame in a 9 to 5 job. Working for you money isn’t anything to balk at, so long as you’re good at what you do and you provide value that you can be proud of. If you’re proud of the value you’re providing, who cares if you flip burgers for a living. If you didn’t flip burgers, no one would have a burger for lunch.

So how can you begin to earn more money? All right, if you came to read this article hoping for some practical steps you could take, I’ll give you few:

1. Write down all of the things that you are good at, all of the talents or abilities you have. Don’t censor yourself or try to figure out whether or not people will pay for it, we’re not to the point of thinking about money yet. Think first about the skills you have to provide value.
2. Once you’ve done that, ask yourself if any of those skills you’ve written down can be transferred into a job of any sort. Most likely you will find that, while you are good at certain things, it may not be up to the level required for you to be paid for this skill. If this is what you find when you look at your list, then you’re next step is clear.
3. Brainstorm ways that you can improve those skills. Does it require going back to school or could you learn everything you need to know through a few simple books? Is there someone you know who could teach you, or perhaps just a few quick courses at a learning center?
4. Start improving those skills.

If you read this list and rolled your eyes or said, “Well that will take forever!” or wondered why I didn’t just give you a simpler answer, then you’re probably not ready to take these steps. If you read it and squared your shoulders for a fight to achieve what you want, then you’re on the right track, my friend. Remember that it may be a long road, but just how badly do you want money? Is it badly enough to improve yourself? Is it badly enough to admit that maybe you aren’t in a position to become a millionaire yet? If you’re not willing to do whatever improvement it takes, then you aren’t willing to have the wealth that you seek and there’s nothing wrong with admitting that you do not want money badly enough.

Be prepared to do what must be done, persevere through anything that gets in your way and you can do nothing but succeed.

When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

–Friedrich Nietzsche

In the previous article about Tough Love for the Self Help Reader I talked about looking into the abyss to find the self improvement answers you’re looking for. I’m sure we could argue all day as to what Nietzsche truly meant by “the abyss” but I have my own interpretation. When I say look into the abyss to solve your problems, the abyss doesn’t look into you, it is you. The abyss is that dark place inside us that we don’t like to look at because it houses the things in our lives that make us uncomfortable. We avoid the abyss at all costs, though few of us realize how detrimental this is to our growth. We stay in shallow end of our development because we feel discomfort wading any farther into our minds that we must. It takes true dedication to improvement to realize that adaptation is the only way to growth. Put more plainly: stay where you are, get what you are getting; expand beyond where you are, get what’s beyond.

Weight Training

Look for a moment at self improvement the same way you would look at progressive weight training. When you resistance train with weights you must continually increase the load of the weights you lift as your body adapts. Lifting causes us discomfort, but your muscles grow to meet the challenge of heavier weights, so the more you challenge your body the more you force your muscles to adapt. Don’t up the weights, your muscles won’t grow because they posses the ability complete the challenge in their current form. Personal development is the same; you must continually challenge yourself to get the results you want.

The discomfort that you feel when looking into that internal abyss is your consciousness trying to stay within the boundaries of its comfort zone. It doesn’t want to leave what is familiar and happy to venture to the dark depths which it knows has the ability to make it unhappy. We store bad memories in the abyss and therefore are never very keen to visit them. We prefer to pretend that they never existed at all, though deep down inside we know that the unhappiness we are experiencing is caused by that which we hide in the darkness. Somehow we know that we must delve into the abyss and sort out all of the emotions we keep stored in there, but it’s uncomfortable and scary, so most people tend to hang back on the sidelines and use blame instead.

Outside Solutions

Blame is an excuse that we use when we are too afraid to take responsibility for our own creations. We use it many ways but one thing is always true, we blame only those things over which we have no control. When we blame other things for our problems we are shutting the door on the abyss and ignoring where the real problems lie. We are seeking outside solutions to inside problems.

Look around you at the people in your life and you will see very clear signs of this. People all over the United States run out to buy miracle pills that will make them thin, while never once giving any thought to diet or exercise. They want something that will make them loose massive amounts of weight very quickly without a change in their lifestyle. Believe me I know, I work in vitamin store, I meet these people nearly everyday. Talking with these people gives you an amazing glimpse into how often we look outside ourselves for solutions. The life outside our physical bodies is more alluring because we can see it, smell it, touch it, it seems more real to us even than our thoughts. Because we can’t see or touch our thoughts they seem too ethereal to be relied upon, so while we may know deep down that our problems are caused internally, we seek solutions that are strictly external.

The logic seems so strange, doesn’t it? We know that most of the time obesity is caused by poor diet and poor exercise habits, but when we look for a solution to this problem most of us look for something outside of ourselves to fix it. We know the reason we do not have the success we desire stems from something internally holding us back, but we prefer to blame outside reasons beyond our control. We know that the problem lies within our own behaviors and beliefs, but something keeps pushing us away from the internal and into the outside world for comfort. To fix our internal problems we must begin to turn inwardly and truly stare into the abyss that we keep from our conscious minds.

The Abyss Looks Into You

To truly look into the abyss is to stare into the face of the limiting beliefs and fears that hold you back from truly doing the things you want to do. We all have fears that keep us in a stalemate in the war for what we want. We find ourselves visualizing the perfect future for ourselves, but to helpless to actually move toward it. Generally we are held back by fears that can take any number of forms. We are unaware of our fears because they do not manifest as phobias, but instead as actions we choose to take. We choose inactiveness over action, or self-sabotage over success. These fears are sneaky and yet incredibly viral.

Just to give you an example of these types of limiting fears here is an excerpt of a journal entry I made the other night as I attempted to wrap my head around what I wanted out of this blog and what was holding me back.

Journal Excerpt from 8/20/2007:

What beliefs do I have that hold me back?

A fear of failure currently limits me. I have failed before and am afraid that I will waste my time on something that won’t pay off for me in the end and I will remain without the freedom or the finances that I desire and having helped no one.

A fear of success currently holds me back because success puts me in the spotlight where everyone can see me. I can’t hide from people and just avoid their opinions I have to deal with the people who don’t like me and think I’m a fraud. This is currently holding me back from success.

A fear that I don’t truly know what I’m talking about currently holds me back. I’m afraid that I haven’t mastered my own life, so who am I to tell others how to. I feel like a sham telling people how to better themselves when it’s something I’m still new at.

Tackle these Beliefs

A fear of failure isn’t something that should hold me back. Making the attempt at success is better than sitting on my hands. The time is going to pass one way or the other. I can either attempt and stay where I am, or succeed and be where I want to be. I have everything to gain and nothing to loose but the time it takes me to learn what not to do, which will be lost either way.

Success is scary but the question whether or not it is scary enough to make me abandon my desires. Am I willing to stand up for my principles and make the difference I know I can or give into criticism, lower myself to please others and tuck my tale between my legs? When it comes down to it I believe that I will stand.

The fear of ignorance goes hand in hand with being thought of as a fraud. The only thing I can do is to take the advice of David Mamet, “Stand up, speak up and tell the truth.” I started the blog to share the answers that I found and the things that had made me a better person in the hopes that those same answers might help others. Whether or not that is true remains to be seen. All I can do now is put out what I have to say and hope that it comes to some good use for both my audience and myself. This fear is simply one I’ll have to accept and live with because I see no way of removing it any time soon.

This is looking into the abyss. It wasn’t easy getting myself to answer truthfully to questions about what I was afraid of, especially when one of my fears is the very thing I’m striving for. I was hard to write this now, but it was even harder to ask these questions a month ago, or three months ago. It gets easier to look into the darkness the more you do it, especially once you start to see patterns emerging in yourself. This, what I’ve posted above, is my way of looking into the abyss, but you might develop a different way. Some people prefer to just sit alone and contemplate in silence; I find that my answers are garbled if I do it that way. Some people, myself included, prefer to write down specific questions for themselves to answer. These tend to be uncomfortable questions like “Why do I seek comfort in food/alcohol/drugs/another person?” It isn’t easy to answer questions like that at all, but the key to this exercise is honesty. I was completely honest in my journal entry because at the time I didn’t think I was going to post it on the internet. You by no means have to post yours online. Write it on the assumption that no one but you will ever read it. Write it on the assumption that you’re going to burn it the minute you are through with it. This isn’t something that other people have to see and the only reason I posted mine above is because it isn’t a very personal example.

Dealing With What You Find

Looking deep inside yourself is hard, but ultimately beneficial because if you never identify the cause of your problems you will never come to a place where you can begin to change them. To fix your problems you must tackle the root causes of them rather than trying to simply treat the symptoms your problems create. Think of it this way, you wouldn’t treat tuberculosis with cough syrup, that’s only treating the symptom, not the condition. To find and fix the root of your problems is a hard and emotional process, but to spend your time treating only the symptoms is simply ineffective.

Start tonight by taking out a clean piece of paper and writing down the questions that could lead you to the answers you want. I doesn’t matter how you are going to fix your problems, that is a problem for another time, this isn’t meant to be a brainstorming session. Write down the questions that will truly benefit you.

1. First identify exactly where you are in the most vivd terms you can. Describe the problem you want to fix and what kind emotions are linked with this problem.
2. Next describe exactly where you want to be, again in the most vivid terms you can. Write as much as you feel you need to get every last detail of the life you wish to lead when your problem is dealt with and gone. Talk about all of the emotions that go along with this scenario.
3. Then ask yourself if you have any fears or limiting beliefs that are holding you back. If your goal is to be rich and yet you think money is the root of all evil, the disagreement will keep you where you are financially. While you are looking at these fears and beliefs keep in mind that the reality you are experiencing right now has been created by what you believe and fear. All of these thoughts that lurk inside your head have helped you to make the decisions that have put you where you are. To get anywhere else you must change these beliefs and fears.
4. How you change them is up to you. That experience is personal and differs greatly from person to person. I find it best to write out a response to that fear like the ones I wrote above. They are short and stark; it’s like dragging these fears into the light of day where I can get a better look at them. This is what works for me because I find that once I’ve explained them to myself in this way, they are no longer scary and many times seem foolish or illogical. This step might be different for you, but it is the most important step and the step that will take the longest. It may take many tries before you truly get anywhere, but keep at it and eventually you will notice the change.

Darkness is Scary, Monsters Aren’t

In his great study of the American horror culture Danse Macabre, Stephen King analyzed the true nature of fear and in doing so illustrated the great importance of this self realization exercise. King says that when you look up a dark staircase, at the top of which lurks some hidden, horrible monster, it isn’t the monster that waits at the top that scares us but the stars themselves. We think that it is the monster that we find terrifying, but the truth is that the scary part of that image is the stairs. Once it has leapt out and startled us, our brain begins immediately to deal with what we are seeing and it is no longer terrifying. What is truly frightening isn’t the moment of revelation but the dark anticipation that keeps us from truly knowing the evil that waits. Think of it this way: it isn’t what lurks in the dark that is scary, it’s the fact that you can’t see what lurks in the dark. Darkness is scary, monsters aren’t.

The staircase is like the abyss. It isn’t what is inside the abyss that we find horrible, it is the abyss itself. We are afraid of what that darkness may hide and generally we find that once those emotions and fears have been brought out into the light they are laughable in their insignificance. They aren’t as large and horrible as we once thought they were. In fact they are the exact opposite; they are easily changeable once we know what we wish them to be.

Take this chance, because it will be the most beneficial chance you ever take. The only thing that stands in the way of you is you and this is the perfect way to remove that stumbling block. Stare into the abyss. Leap into the abyss. It will seem uncomfortable at first, but how much do you truly want what you say you want? It is enough to endure some discomfort, is it enough to admit your fears or past mistakes? If the answer isn’t a resounding yes, then perhaps your first step should be to find a desire that truly motivates you. When you desire something badly enough, you will walk through the darkness to get it.

This has been a long article but I hope you made it all the way and have found it beneficial. This exercise can change you life if you do it regularly and honestly. Be open to making that change; it will not happen on its own.