Why This Isn’t Another Article About Making Money on Medium

But it is about feeling rich

There are many articles on Medium about how to make money on Medium.

And these articles get a lot of views and a lot of claps. But do they make the readers rich?

Or do they make the people who aren’t getting rich with their articles more aware of a lack of riches?

I’m all in favor of making money on Medium, but I’d like to remind you that you can live rich even if you don’t receive a hefty payment for your words and ideas.

I don’t feel rich, you might say, and I get that.

Living rich doesn’t have much to do with how much money you have. Winning the lottery isn’t guaranteed to make you happy. There’s evidence that if you were happy before you won, you’re likely to be happy after, but if you aren’t happy when you win, yes, you’ve guessed it, you aren’t necessarily happy afterward. Often lottery winners don’t feel rich, they think like poor people with money. They don’t think they’re worthy of a lot of money.

Feeling worthy of the money

Winning the lottery if you don’t feel worthy of the money brings its own problems. Professor Andrew Oswald of Warwick University says, “There is no doubt there is a very strong [initial] euphoria, then the evidence suggests people don’t enjoy the money for the first year or two.” It’s not clear why this gap exists before lottery winners start to enjoy themselves. “We have postulated after the euphoria wears off, in their subconscious, they realize they don’t deserve the money, and it takes a while for this non-deservedness to wear off,” says Professor Oswald.

One way to stop a feeling of not being worthy of winning the lottery or making money on Medium is to notice the words you use about money and what it represents to you and about you.

It’s worth looking at what beliefs you have around money, what you tell yourself about money, and what the people around you say about money. Do you automatically tell yourself that you don’t have the money to do things, or maybe tell yourself that you can’t afford whatever you want?

Do your eyes always look for the cheapest thing on the menu if you’re out with friends and then the person next to you orders an expensive dish, and you spend the rest of the evening seething with resentment because you know the bill will be split evenly and that person’s dish cost double what yours did?

Do you receive a gift and immediately think about re-gifting it rather than experiencing the pleasure of a present?

Look at how you treat yourself, and I don’t mean in the way you might typically think of a ‘treat’, no chocolate bars in this conversation, but are you wearing out-of-shape clothes or grey underwear?

What are you unconsciously telling yourself about yourself? If you aren’t treating yourself with respect and care, how would you expect to feel worthy of money?

Make yourself worthy of the best you can afford. The best food to keep you healthy, the best relationship you can create with others, the best you can be, and see how your feelings about yourself change.

What do the people around you think about money?

Do the people around you complain about their financial circumstances, and then you feel guilty if you have some financial success?

Do the people around you celebrate if you start a new venture? Or do they immediately tell you how it’s likely to go wrong?

Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, advises that if you’re surrounded by friends and family who are likely to tell you how your idea is flawed, don’t tell them. Keep your idea to yourself and keep working on it until the time is right to reveal it rather than get put off by the nay-sayers.

Don’t pay attention to the way other people think about money, shine a light on the way you think about feeling rich.

Feeling rich

Another way to feel rich is not to play down what you have. When I first wanted to live by the sea, we looked at many different beaches and areas. I had criteria in my head, I wanted a sandy beach, I didn’t want it to be too far from London as there are people I want to visit in London, and I wanted somewhere with a sea view.

Many people told me that this wasn’t going to happen, especially when we decided we wanted to live in Sandbanks, the fourth most expensive place in the world.

Champagne tastes with lemonade money, people said. But I set a budget to rent somewhere and found exactly the right place for us.

It isn’t the most luxurious flat, it needs refurbishing, but we love it. We’re surrounded by sea, and a few short steps down from the patio onto the sand. But when we first moved here, I found that whenever anyone asked where we live, I prefaced my answer with, ‘we only rent’. I realized that I was running old patterns of ‘not getting above myself’ or appearing to have too much.

I had all the riches I wanted around me, sea and sand, but I wasn’t thinking rich.

Nowadays, I am always very happy to tell people that we rent our flat, but I don’t offer it in the humble, undeserving way that I used to. I think rich.

People sometimes think that they need more money to feel rich, but if you have an empty drawer you fill it, your expenses expand to swallow up any extra cash. We’ve all heard stories about famous people who had millions and ended up broke. Jocelyn Wildenstein, who is often called the cat woman because of her extensive cosmetic surgery, was rumored to spend $1 million a month and $500 a month on her phone bill alone. In May 2018, she went bankrupt with $0 in her account.

Remember, just like a pack of cards doesn’t make a gambler, money can’t make you feel anything. When the late J. Paul Getty was asked to confirm that he was worth over a billion dollars; he replied, “Yes, I suppose it’s true but a billion dollars doesn’t go as far as it used to.”

You can feel poor with a billion dollars or rich with a few pounds.

Whether you make money on Medium or not.