Providing for a family can be daunting. Especially after the restrictions and inflation over the last 5 years.
What else proliferated during those 5 years? People seeking out gurus to become financially free. Many influencers hawk a narrative that you need more control over your income streams.
They hawk another common narrative, too: kids keep you from making money.
But are these ideas at odds?
Uncomfortable contradictions
So let’s address some uncomfortable contradictions on the table:
Kids need resources to survive
They’re not any different than you in this respect. If they don’t eat, they don’t grow. If they don’t get water, they get sick. And providing these divert time and effort from nurturing resources that perpetuate themselves.
Kids need to learn how to survive in this world
Which can take time from you to learn how to thrive. Luckily, we talked about optimizing this earlier.
It’s going to get harder
No advance comes without drawbacks. Smartphones that allow us unprecedented access to information sap our attention. It can buy you a momentary respite from your kids to talk to your spouse.
It only costs a deluge of harmful content at their fingertips. Not to mention a host of other children forced into systems where they don’t get enough attention. Ones willing to tear your kid down to make themselves feel better.
No one’s coming to make this easier for you. And many influencers insist on cornering yourself to grow to phenomenal levels.
But you have kids at home. If you’re reading this blog, it matters whether you tuck them in at night.
So, can you have both? Let’s try an exercise together that’s helped me get there.
Mindset matters
So you want a high contact family while increasing control over your income.
Let’s start with what’s going on between your ears. Something we all have to get past is how our upbringing affects our beliefs around money.
I grew up with one parent out of the house most of the time. I didn’t want for a lot of material comforts, but I also thought high income meant high time away from home. Then, my family grew and I needed more money.
I spent way more time than I needed convincing myself these were at odds. I left a lot of good opportunities on the table.
Trying to sever this connection left me overworked and not being able to swallow. This worried my family even more. Not to mention I wasn’t making it home in time for family dinners.
So a good first step is figuring out how to get over what you’ve already learned about money and work. Try the following exercise from David Bayer:
- Make three columns on a piece of paper
- In the first column, write down the limiting belief(s) you currently tell yourself about money.
Something like, “There’s no opportunity to make money outside of my job.” - Then, write down the opposite of that belief in the next column.
“There are plenty of opportunities to make money outside of my job.” - In the last column, write down any evidence you have to support your new belief.
“LBAH told me so, and the internet doesn’t lie.”
Do this for every belief you think is holding you back from getting this balance.
Conclusion
It sounds simpler than it is. But does that exercise fix everything?
Not all at once. This takes a couple rounds of practice. And, once you form these new beliefs, you can start acting on them.
That can get you to making more money without taking time from your kids.
What’s most important is to make the decision to practice. Get your head around the game, find a path forward, and remember what’s most important to you to succeed.
You already have enough to be there for your family. Physically and financially.
Just take time to recognize it.
Affiliate Corner
Looking for others who can get you to this next level of confidence for your family’s sake? Check out Tom Woods School of Life today to join a group of like-minded doers and lovers of liberty.
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Looking for other parts of this series? Check out these related articles from Liberty Begins At Home:
Liberty Begins At Home 
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