{"id":100,"date":"2024-02-05T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/evidence-to-the-contrary-limiting-beliefs\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T18:52:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T18:52:21","slug":"evidence-to-the-contrary-limiting-beliefs","status":"publish","type":"essays","link":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/essays\/evidence-to-the-contrary-limiting-beliefs\/","title":{"rendered":"Evidence to the Contrary"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

On May 6, 1954, a British man named Roger Bannister did what was formerly considered unthinkable: He ran a mile in under four minutes. Runners had been chasing this elusive goal \u201cseriously\u201d since 1886, and for 68 years, the most talented athletes around the world slowly convinced themselves it wasn\u2019t physically possible.<\/p>\n

Then Bannister proved it was. <\/p>\n

And just 46 days later, an Australian did it, too. <\/p>\n

A year later, three more runners did it in the same race<\/em>. \u201cOver the last half century,\u201d writes Bill Taylor<\/span><\/a> for the Harvard Business Review, \u201cmore than a thousand runners have conquered a barrier that had once been considered hopelessly out of reach.\u201d Bannister provided undeniable evidence that it could be done, and the psychological barrier of impossibility shattered. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I noticed something recently in my comments section that concerned me, but it took me a few days to diagnose why. It was a certain posture; a commitment to finding reasons for why \u201cit\u201d just won\u2019t work<\/em>. (\u201cIt\u201d can be any piece of practical advice that demonstrates financial progress.)<\/p>\n

The tone approximated an accusation: How dare you suggest [insert example here] is possible?<\/em> <\/p>\n

Call it cynicism. Call it pessimism. Call it being chronically online. But it\u2019s an alluring strain of discourse that I fall into sometimes, too: economic<\/strong> doomerism<\/strong>. Over the last few weeks, I\u2019ve noticed the \u201cI\u2019ll literally never afford a house and I\u2019m going to work until I die!!! lololol\u201d punchline of depressed resignation is wearing business formal now: \u201cSaving for anything is literally impossible<\/em>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Doomerism works online because it can<\/em> be fun. There\u2019s a miserable solidarity cultivated in that humorous, hopeless soil. The problem is, many of the people digging their hands in the dirt have had their backs turned to untended greener pastures for so long that they don\u2019t even notice they\u2019re there anymore.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014I\u2019m aware 18% of the US population<\/a> lives in poverty, for whom doing something like \u2018saving money\u2019 really is<\/em> an impossible task in their current circumstances (our episode this week is about why poverty persists in the US, if you\u2019re also curious why the rate remains so high despite the US\u2019s relative abundance). I want to be very clear I\u2019m not talking about this group, as I see this rhetoric most from those whose economic and career prospects are a far cry from the low-wage cycle.<\/p>\n

Still, I know when people take a hostile tone, they\u2019re not really mad at me<\/em>. They\u2019re mad at their circumstances, as they genuinely believe their situation (or The<\/em> Situation, as in, the broader economic one, not Jersey Shore alum Mike Sorrentino) is hopeless\u2014and I empathize with those feelings. <\/p>\n

The distressing thing about the prevalence of this attitude is that it shrouds opportunity. When you editorialize your life as a predetermined path with fixed parameters, that\u2019s what life becomes. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I know this because it\u2019s how I used to think about my earning potential. <\/p>\n

There was a story I told myself\u2014somewhat unconsciously\u2014about what \u201cpeople like me\u201d could earn. I graduated from a big public university with a communications degree,<\/em> I told myself. I don\u2019t know how to operate Microsoft Excel, much less code, and I lack hard skills. <\/em>A six-figure income felt so out of reach that it never occurred to me to strive for it. I\u2019m an ad copywriter, and that just doesn\u2019t pay well, <\/em>I\u2019d say. But that\u2019s the path I chose, so I have to live with that, unless I go back to school and get a more valuable education.<\/em><\/p>\n

This outlook doesn\u2019t exactly inspire confidence. I usually employed it as a self-deprecating veneer, but it papered over an underlying skepticism of my ability to create something of value. I had vague notions about what types of skills did<\/em> create value: Law degrees! Organic chemistry! Computer science! (I wasn\u2019t aware of things like private equity or hedge funds at the time, so I didn\u2019t yet know that hard skills are for chumps and \u2018person with a job that benefits from the carried interest exemption\u2019 was where the real<\/em> money was, but I digress.)<\/p>\n

Then I started (inadvertently) collecting evidence to the contrary. <\/p>\n

My friend\u2014we\u2019ll call her Bella*\u2014graduated from a big state school like me. She studied a similar amalgamation of commsmarketising (communications? marketing? advertising?) that usually translates to generic job titles, $48,000 starting salaries, and long years spent at agencies living out an unglamorous version of the Andie Sachs fantasy<\/span><\/a> with fewer chic outfits. <\/p>\n

But she took a hard left turn and vacated her underpaid agency gig to become a fitness instructor. After only a year or two, she was pulling in nearly $90,000 to teach two 45-minute classes per day, six days a week. (She ended up being named the top instructor in our city a few times over in the years that followed, a lululemon ambassador, and a development coach to other <\/em>instructors, including me.)<\/p>\n

Hm,<\/em> I thought upon learning of her shockingly high income for roughly 15 hours of work she loved per week, that\u2019s interesting<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Next it was another friend, Sarah*, who made $12\/hour with me at our first internship. After the program ended, she spent a few months being underpaid at some local shop. Before long, she quit and started her own. Within a year or two, she was making $20,000 or $30,000\u2026per month<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Holy shit<\/em>, I said when we sat down for coffee and she talked to me about her business model. It hadn\u2019t occurred to me that that was an option, and I was foaming cappuccino at the mouth.<\/p>\n

Then it was Shelly*, a friend who had worked as a public school teacher but did freelance copywriting on the side, since teaching didn\u2019t pay very well and being on the receiving end of high school boys\u2019 jokes was about as fun as going to the dentist. She shocked me one summer when she told me she was leaving this career she didn\u2019t enjoy to pursue her copywriting business full-time, and it only took her two years to double her teaching salary. <\/p>\n

The final push was my friend Payton.* She had worked at a local megacorp similar to mine for a couple of years\u2014but when I was doubling down and gunning for a raise that would take me from $53,000 to $60,000, she was leaving her corporate job to join a small business owner as the team\u2019s creative director. She earned around $100,000 plus equity out of the gate.<\/p>\n

I remember leaving a conversation with Payton one early morning in which she detailed the inner workings of her job, and I couldn\u2019t believe how she had sculpted this high-paying role out of thin air that animated her zone of genius so perfectly. As I drove home to get ready for work, the lines on the road lulled me into a sort of hypnosis. I reflected on my rapidly accumulating evidence that maybe my story was bullshit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

All four women went to public state universities. They all graduated with the same degree I did, or another that\u2019s associated with low pay. None of them worked for prestigious consulting firms or investment banks. They all held similar skill sets; that is to say, none of them could write code or perform advanced calculus. Yet I <\/em>was the only one telling myself that those things necessarily dictated my earning potential. <\/p>\n

I began to see opportunity differently\u2014which meant I started taking different actions. This was ultimately the awakening that led me to buy the domain for a site called Money with Katie Dot Com and commit to publishing two blog posts per week for a year. Four years later, that business has $1.5 million in annual revenue and is responsible for supporting not one, but two<\/em> six-figure incomes. <\/p>\n

Because that\u2019s one of the most unexpected byproducts of changing your story\u2014in doing so, you don\u2019t just prove yours<\/em> wrong, but you can prove someone else\u2019s limiting story wrong, too. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I used to write off \u201cmindset work\u201d as frivolous bullshit\u2014it struck me as pseudoscientific at best and out-of-touch at worst. You\u2019re telling me I just need to <\/em>think differently and it\u2019ll solve wage stagnation? Yeah, okay. <\/em><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s true\u2014changing your conscious thoughts is not enough. If I had simply recited the phrase \u201cI\u2019m worthy of making $100,000!\u201d without proof, I wouldn\u2019t have believed it, so I wouldn\u2019t have behaved differently. I needed evidence. If you find yourself stuck in a limiting story, the best thing you can do for your subconscious mind is start seeking proof of the contrary. (Our brains love to engage in confirmation bias<\/a>, so this will feel uncomfortable\u2026at first.)<\/p>\n

Thankfully, I watched as people I perceived to be my equals carve their own paths and find success, and it showed my subconscious mind that that was an option I could choose, too.<\/p>\n

*Names have been changed to protect the individuals described, though I\u2019ve probably given enough detail here that anyone who knows these people will realize who they are. If you do, shoot \u2018em a \u201ccongrats\u201d text.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On May 6, 1954, a British man named Roger Bannister did what was formerly considered unthinkable: He ran a mile in under four minutes. Runners had been chasing this elusive goal \u201cseriously\u201d since 1886, and for 68 years, the most talented athletes around the world slowly convinced themselves it wasn\u2019t physically possible. 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