How can you generate enough value to achieve the level of income you desire? You’re in command, so this is your decision to make. If your current approach isn’t effective, you may need to experiment to find something that works. Keep asking yourself these two questions: How can I create and deliver more value? How can I increase my capacity for value creation? Then use your power to act on the truths you discover.
When we start out in life, most of us have few skills that can be used to create social value. With our bodies we can perform unskilled physical labor, but that doesn’t provide much value because it’s too common and readily replaceable. In order to generate significant value, we must invest in ourselves by developing our talents and skills. If you want to earn more money, you must train yourself to create and deliver more social value. You can certainly take advantage of educational resources, but never forget that you’re responsible for your own learning. If insufficient education is holding you back financially, it’s up to you to remedy that situation. Keep developing your skills to the point where you’re capable of making a meaningful contribution; then develop them some more. You may be in a weak position right now, but that’s no excuse because you’re perfectly capable of making small improvements each day, and incremental improvements lead to major changes. If you start on such a path today, you won’t even be able to fathom where you’ll be in five years.
In order to provide the social value I (Steve Pavlina) am capable of delivering today, I had to invest thousands of hours in self-development and education. While many of my peers slacked off in high school, I enrolled in challenging honors classes and put in the effort required to earn straight A’s, and I studied computer programming on the side. After graduating from college, I continued reading hundreds of books on a variety of topics, and I attended seminars and workshops to continue my education. The way I see it, school is never out. If you want to put yourself in a position of creating substantial value, you must commit to being a lifelong student.
If you’re thinking that most people will never make such a commitment, you’re absolutely right. Developing socially valuable skills is hard work, but those who put in the time are rewarded handsomely for their efforts, not only financially but also by the intrinsic rewards of creative self-expression.
Be sure that your self-education is practical. It’s entirely possibel to build skills that are of great interest to you but that no one will pay for. There’s nothing wrong with acquiring interesting knowledge that has little or no financial value—just don’t whine and complain that no one will open their wallets for you.
Strive to become an authority in the area of overlap between your personal interests and social demand and you’ll have an easier time earning money. When I was a teenager, I loved palying video games. Maybe I could have been a game tester, but such jobs typically pay close to minimum wage so that didn’t seem like a great option. However, I also thought it would be fun to create games. This provided more social value, so consequently I was able to generate a decent income from those efforts, even while I was still in school.
If you can’t find the area of overlap between what you enjoy and what people are willing to pay for, try harder. Don’t settle for one or the other. Persist, and you’ll eventually find a way to have both. If you can generate a great income from doing what you love, you’ll love your work even more. I can tell you from experience that it’s a lot more fun to work with plenty of money coming in than it is to labor on while sinking into debt.
* Source: Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina