Stuck in a financial rut? These could be the reasons why
What happens when your business is doing well but you hit a ceiling in your financial growth? Maybe you’re a high-income earner and you’re putting off actions that you know will move you forward. Maybe you can’t seem to get past a certain income or net worth figure.
Today I want to share some common reasons why high performers hit their growth ceiling and how to overcome them.
Chasing ‘success’ instead of chasing vitality
I recently had a client who was an established business owner. He could see exactly what he needed to do to get to the next level of revenue growth, but he wasn’t taking action. He didn’t know why. He thought he had a scarcity mentality.
I dug a little deeper and within minutes I saw this: He was no longer in love with his job. He was pushing, pushing, crushing. But his heart wasn’t in it. He had lost his spark.
There are two different drivers of growth. The first is directed outwards; You are driven by external consequences. You want a specific outcome (job, property, wealth, income) and identify the steps you need to take to get it: “Do X, get Y.”
The journey becomes lighter when you start to fall in love with the game itself.
This can get you pretty far. Some high performers live their entire lives in this growth style because you develop a strong belief that you can solve anything you set your mind to.
But many high performers eventually hit a wall. Sometimes it looks like burnout, sometimes it looks like apathy or procrastination, loss of motivation or purpose, or a midlife crisis.
This is your opportunity to shift to the second growth style: inwardly focused. Here, you begin to pursue goals based on what brings you fulfillment and vitality; You start to care about what you do. request and how are you to feelnot just the one that will bring you results.
You may feel like you’re sacrificing growth in the short term. But this is the only sustainable way to create growth in the long term. feels good and only To look good on paper.
For my client, this looked like starting a new business that he was truly passionate about, rather than pushing himself to continue growing a business that he felt was beyond him.
Attachment to the outcome rather than the game
I had a client who lost a major financial opportunity last year, and we worked together on how to overcome the regret and disappointment of that loss.
This is a challenge that comes in different forms; for example, in investments, divorce, business deals, etc. loss of money. This can cause many negative emotions (fear, regret, disappointment and even depression) that make it difficult to ‘get back in the game’.
How do you proceed? In short, you learn to love the game more than the money itself.
This requires some objectivity, which may seem counter-intuitive. After all, if you’re after financial growth, you obviously want money; That’s why you work so hard to get it.
But the more attached you are, the harder it is to grow. You begin to fear taking risks and begin to avoid losses rather than pursuing growth. You begin to attach too much meaning to wins and losses; When you win, you feel successful, and when you don’t, you feel unsuccessful. All this turns into emotional noise that prevents you from making clear and confident decisions.
The journey becomes lighter when you start to fall in love with the game itself. Mistakes are not failures, they are lessons. Losses are not devastating, they can be compensated.
Gradually, you begin to love your own journey of growth and evolution as you transform with each new level of the game. This would be the actual return on your investment, not the money itself.
This is how you gradually expand your capacity to tolerate financial loss; This is crucial if you want to build serious wealth. The bigger the game you want to play, the bigger the losses you should be able to tolerate.
If you can’t stand watching your portfolio drop from $10,000 to $9,000, how will you handle it dropping from $100,000 to $90,000? If you can’t handle losing $10,000 on a bad business deal, how are you going to take an opportunity that could cost you $50,000?
For my client, this shift in perspective helped her overcome the negative emotions she had been struggling with for years and rediscover her excitement for the future she was building.
The default response of high performers to a growth ceiling is to work harder. But at a certain level, it’s not about trying harder. The real unlock point is playing the game differently, not harder.
Paridhi Jain is a money and mindset coach who combines practical strategies with mindset transformation to help clients create wealth, greater freedom and fulfillment in work and life.
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Paridhi Jain is the founder of financial education platform SkilledSmart, which has helped hundreds of adults gain financial confidence by teaching them practical strategies for managing, saving and investing their money.
