It’s pay day…again. In the past, pay day was a most wondrous event: you get to pay the bills, keep that nice home of yours, put food on the table, and have a little bit left over to go out to eat every once in awhile.

Now that the freshness has worn off and your paycheck has stagnated over the years, pay day means more days ahead of hard work, stress, and worrying about how you’ll have enough to retire.

And if that wasn’t enough, do you really want to live the rest of your days working for money rather than money serving you?

The fact of the matter is that you’re tired of working for the same paycheck and you want to continually have a flourishing income that doubles or even triples itself every year.

For most of my life, I spent my time being wasted from hard work and stress. I would work 12 hour days as a real estate developer building and renovating houses, while also managing tenants in my rental apartments. I was constantly going back and forth between managing contractors, building, giving estimates, collecting late rent, evicting tenants, collecting non-payment from customers, and designing homes. I worked for money and it owned me. And the real kicker is: I had little to show for it in the end, except for ruining many relationships, foreclosures, and near bankruptcy.

I thought I was doing all the right things: working hard, imagining my success, being a good salesman, etc. However, where was the money? I wanted an income to support my desires so I can grow, be comfortable, and enjoy luxuries. I didn’t want to be a slave to money and just pay the bills.

It’s now obvious that working for money is NOT the answer. It’s also obvious that I must be a slow learner. My "failure" experiences were feedback screaming in my face on how to succeed in real estate, but I was too blind and too distracted to see the truth.

What was the truth? Admitting that I sucked at money.

I wanted positive change, but I was too attached to the mental image of the success I desired that I disowned truth in my life. I didn’t want to look at my inadequacies as a real estate developer or as a person. I didn’t want to consider whether my type of thinking and acting was working for me. And, I didn’t want to face the ever growing financial mess I was secretly creating.

Rather than facing the truth to who I was, how I thought, and whether my actions were even effective with heart, I hoped for the best that I would come out on top and all would be okay.

Hope…it’s the reason why cancer patients beat cancer, why army boys stay alive during war, and why most of us get up in the morning- because it’s a fresh start. However, hope is also the reason why you stay stuck, as I did, because it’s a good excuse to keep denying the truth of your life. (Damn that double bind!).

If I died tomorrow and my wish was to teach one last lesson about money and finances, it would be this one: accept you are powerless and get clear on the truth to your life.

Truth is fully accepting and admitting that you lack the self-awareness of figuring out what’s keeping you stuck. It’s so simple, but so hard at the same time because you would rather live in denial and attached to your illusory future concepts, than admit that you just plain suck at money.

Can you say that, "I suck at money?" I know, it was an ego blow the first time I said it, too. However, admitting that "I sucked at money" set me free at the same time. When you can admit this level of powerlessness and let it sink to your heart, you’ll start with a clean slate and the opportunity to embark on a new adventure of getting what you want.

Accepting the truth so you can grow.

Realizing that you suck at money is the prerequisite for getting involved in these steps. Admitting that you are powerless, when stuck in a certain area of life, primes the growth pump.

Seriously, think about this. If every year a farmer used the same seed to plant corn, but every year he would never reap the harvest, would he keep using the same seed? Absolutely not! He would admit his inadequacy to farming and change his practice until something worked.

I have created a simple two-step process for you to follow and bring truth to your life. Rather than me go on and on about the benefits, try it out for yourself and watch the positive transformation.

Step 1: Understand where you are at.

This step is a more detailed version of "I suck at money" where you’re going to lay it all out on paper, so you have an objective view of the current results you receive. Now, I’m chunking down these exercises to fit the context of money because you want a flourishing income, right? However, you can apply the questions below to any area of life.

Get your favorite journal out and take time to answer these questions. Do not hold back. Answer each question with honesty.

1. How do I currently feel about my income? Describe it. On a scale of 1-10, 10 feeling ecstatic, where do I fall on that scale?
2. How much money do I currently make per year? Per month? Per day? Per hour?
3. What amount of money feels comfortable to me?
4. If my income dropped to a certain range, at what income range per month would I start feeling uncomfortable?
5. At what income range per month would I feel completely fulfilled if it began to rise?
6. What assets do I have? What are my liabilities?
7. What do I really want to create in this area of life. Describe it with positive emotion and in terms of what you want.

After I did this exercise, I had an objective view of my current financial situation. To be honest, it wasn’t good and I felt awful about it. I realized that I was $40,000 in debt, earning $500 per month, and the description about my current income had doomsday written all over it.

It went something like this: "I feel stuck in my current money situation. Nothing seems to work. I don’t understand why people won’t buy my products or hire me. I feel angry and depressed because it sucks trying to make ends meet every month…"

The point is: be brutally honest with yourself. If you feel awful afterwards and cry, so be it and let it happen because now you have prepared the soil for an abundance of corn.

Step 2: Acceptance

Acceptance is an inner shift. There is nothing you need to do to fully accept your situation. All it needs is your full attention and awareness to the situation. This means being fully immersed in your situation WITHOUT judgment or criticism.

The benefits of acceptance is that you allow yourself to heal and make amends with your past. You’re probably carrying around with you a lot of emotional baggage that’s stunting your conscious growth, thus limiting your income. Would a Professional Baseball Player ever get to the professional level if he held onto the emotional baggage of every strikeout he had? The answer is obvious, no.

Your situation of stagnating or declining income is what it is. You can deny it, add resistance, and stay stuck. Or, you can allow it to be. If you’ve did step one, then you’re fully aware of your situation and where you want to go. The next thing you need to do is notice, with awareness, your discomfort when in money situations.

Your discomfort will manifest as negative feelings. Your feelings are indicators to what you’re thinking about and identifying with. To the degree that you can notice your feelings and connect your feelings to how you think, you’ll be free from non-resourceful behaviors that keep you stuck and you’ll be able to make resourceful decisions that promote happiness and prosperity.

One of the problems I continuously had manifest for me was bouncing my checking account and not having enough for my basic needs. Every time I went online to check my bank account, I was nervous, sad, and worried. As soon as that happened, I became present with those feelings. I observed my mental chatter and where those feelings were in my body.

From the time I logged in to my bank account until I logged out and put the computer away, I was very alert and present to my feelings and thoughts. I didn’t do anything about them, I just watched them. I did this for weeks and what I found was I stopped bouncing my account. In fact, the money in my account began to prosper.

How did this happen?

Well, as I became intently aware of my feelings and the thoughts they were associated with, I couldn’t follow through with unresourceful behaviors and habits. I stopped spending money I didn’t have and I stopped making decision that put me in debt. You are set up for abundance and prosperity. And, when you’re able to watch your feelings and thoughts, they do not have power over you unless you choose too.

Allowing Universal Intelligence to guide you.

Here’s how to make this step work: Carry around a 3×5 note card with you for a week. Whenever you feel emotional discomfort, I want you to notice, with awareness, the negative feeling(s) that come up and place a checkmark on one side of that note card.

Then, curiously watch your feelings, like a scientist curious about whether he found a preserved dinosaur marking, and identify where that feeling is in your body. Do not pass judgment to your feelings. Let them be as they are and let them run their course. Write these questions on the other side of the note card for helpful pointers to gain awareness and let go of your inner resistance:

• Could I be okay with these feelings?
• Where in my body are these feelings?
• Would I let these feelings go?
• Could I be Big Heart right now?

In a nutshell, here is the process: Notice feelings of discomfort -> place check-mark on one side of the card -> watch your feelings and where they are located in your body -> ask the pointers on the other side of the card to let go of the resistance.

As you get good at bringing truth to your life, you’ll realize that your reality is created by the thoughts you identify with and the actions you take. Truth brings you acceptance so you feel good and so you have the conscious awareness to create what you want in life.

Doubling or tripling your income every year will become easier and easier when you accept the truth to your current life and watch with awareness your dysfunctional feelings and actions. You will stop looking at each pay day as a continuation of the rat-race and you’ll hop off that rodent wheel. Soon enough you’ll find yourself with a flourishing income each year and the ability to transform any area of life that you choose.

In the next post I’ll help you take it a step further so you can intentionally create what you desire in life.