If you grew up in the ’70s or ’80s, you likely remember the television ad for a perfume called Enjoli. Hailed at the time as an homage to female empowerment, the lyrics were: “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never ever let you forget you’re a man—cuz I’m a woman.” If you’re looking for a quick laugh, check it out on YouTube.

Got to thinking about bringing home the bacon lately, though, when I was chatting with a friend about money. One of the weird glitches of our society is the taboo around talking about money—how we make it, how we save it, how we spend it, how we crave it. I don’t mean we can’t find information about money—there are countless blogs, television shows, seminars, and workshops on financial management. I mean the unspoken but entirely accepted notion that it’s incredibly rude to ask another human being how much money they make—and what they had to do to make it.

The upshot of this “rule” is that it can be hard to get candid information about making money. We can obviously take our cues from the rags to riches stories that the media seem to love. But what happens if you don’t have a billion dollar business idea? What happens if you don’t even want one? How about all those people who just want to secure a good job, build a quiet career, and make enough money to pay the mortgage, send the kids to school, and take a couple of vacations every year? Unless they have a mentor to guide them—whether that’s parents, a family friend, or a colleague—they often end up floundering around, lost amid a bunch of conflicting ideas about money.

In light of this situation, I thought it might be interesting to share my high-level thoughts about raking it in, hitting pay dirt, and living high off the hog.

Is money energy?

Hang around with a spiritual crowd for any length of time, and you’re going to hear this come up a lot. The idea is that our perception of money dictates our ability to attract money. So, if you think of money as the root of all evil, if you think there isn’t enough to go around, if you believe you have to cheat or lie to make money, your beliefs will interfere with your earning capacity.

One of the insidious aspects of this belief system is that it’s particularly attractive to people who have difficulty making money. In essence, you may not have started with the belief that money is evil, but because you’re struggling to earn, your psyche needs to latch onto a reason for this struggle. So it tells you that, in fact, you never really intended to make money in the first place, because it’s evil.

I spend a lot of time in this blog talking about the power of our thoughts to influence our reality, which is why I think it’s pretty important to examine our beliefs about money. Talking only for myself, I can say unequivocally that I only started making real money when I exchanged my mentality of lack for a mentality of abundance.

I grew up poor—and I didn’t like it. Not surprisingly, I developed an aversion to poverty as a result. The trouble about aversions is that, at their core, they’re nothing but fear. So, in plain language, it would be entirely fair to say that I held a deep-rooted, visceral terror of going broke.

Fear is not an attracting force. Instead of focusing on abundance, my psyche spent its time focusing on my fear of lack. Which manifested lack. To change my fortunes, I needed to change my mind. Which I did when I adopted the following mantra: “My world is full of abundance. I have enough time, enough money, and enough energy to accomplish everything I want.”

It wasn’t instantaneous, but it was palpable. After a relatively short time, my ability to earn rose, because my fear of loss diminished. As a HUGE added bonus, I stopped living in constant fear. It was fucking fabulous.

Is money only energy?

Here’s the thing, though. To make money, you need to be receptive to making money. But receptivity alone is insufficient. Because, unlike sunshine and rain, money does not fall from the sky and bathe us all equally just because we’re standing in its flow. First, you attune yourself to money. Next, you need to earn it.

I wish I could wave my magic wand and create a revenue generation shortcut, but in my experience, making money takes work. Sometimes it’s grueling work. Sometimes it’s work that feels “beneath” us. Sometimes it takes us away from things we’d rather be doing. But unless you put the hours in, you rarely get a payoff.

It’s also worth noting that earning is only half of the equation. The other half involves making sure you’re not living beyond your means. Again, that might mean making sacrifices in how you choose to live. Maybe you don’t go out as much as you’d like. Maybe you don’t buy all the things you want. Maybe you even end up living in a smaller apartment than you’d prefer, or a neighbourhood that isn’t exactly core.

The trick at this point is to ideally earn at least a bit more than you spend, so you can start to save. And that’s when the magic starts to happen.

Look, I know I’m oversimplifying. But these are the basics—and they’re basics that not everyone learns. Let me know if you want more details and I can write some more posts about this. Because the truth is that it’s hard to be truly conscious and carefree if you’re constantly worried about making ends meet. To live life to its fullest potential, you need the means for truly enjoying it—and it’s our commitment to share strategies with you on how to live more joyfully and productivity.