I don't think we want a 7-figure income

Are we escaping our best lives by trying to make more money?

May 28, 2025

Business gurus tell us that ultimate freedom lies at the end of a row of zeros.

They reveal blueprints for making an income that allows for travel, luxury shopping, bold investments and a pension fund.

And they’re not wrong, making enough money can set us free from the daily grind.

But what’s often missing in these blueprints is utter honesty about what achieving a 7-figure income looks like before you get it.

In traditional employment, getting a high-paying job means first completing various less-paying jobs to acquire the skills, networks and reputation needed to climb to the highest ladder. This might take decades, meaning you might be 50+ before you get there.

In entrepreneurship, the road to riches might include selling an idea to investors for years and years, taking several financial risks, working 12–14-hour days and abiding by the logic of capitalism to some degree, i.e. exploiting cheap labour, materials and production facilities if needed to make a profit.

In self-employment, arriving at a 7-figure income will similarly include long working days and/or risky investment strategies, years of consistently showing up, promoting your work in multiple different channels, using AI wherever possible, and developing a tight-knit strategy that allows very little room for random sidetracks.

Sure, we might want the account balance with all the zeros at the end. But do we want to live the life that will get us there?

I argue most of us don’t.

Instead, we want to sleep.

We want the energy to cook ourselves a healthy meal.
We want evenings when we don’t have to think about work.
We want 4-day workweeks and 6-hour days.

We want time to see our friends spontaneously.
We want a sense of community.
We want relationships with a deep connection.
We want to raise children who don’t need therapy as adults.

Sure, we want the material things too.

We want a home with enough squaremeters for some peace and quiet. Maybe a nice garden.
We want to buy groceries without thinking about the price of the granola.
We want to get a massage now and then.
We want a holiday or two a year.

But we also want things that cannot be measured in money.

We want work that serves some type of purpose.
We want creativity and inspiration.
We want to feel energised by what we do.
We want our days to be filled with doing more than one thing.

We also want our lives to contribute to the general good.

We want a planet that will serve our grandchildren.
We want economies not driven by greed.
We want wellbeing for those suffering from destruction and poverty.

To achieve most of these things, we need another Northern Star than a 7-figure income.

Most of the time, a five-figure income will do just fine.

The real work is to get that and at least some of those other things.

We need to set a more realistic financial goal and focus on meeting our other life goals instead of always thinking we need more money to get there.

Always wanting more will leave us feeling less because it diverts us from seeing what is accessible right here, right now.

We might be surprised to notice that when we shift our focus to the other types of wellbeing and freedom, we can make do with less money.

Here are a few questions to help you figure out how big of a role money plays in your search for happiness and contentment:

If I look at the goals I have for my life, how much money do I realistically need to achieve them?
Am I willing to sacrifice some years of my life to pursue a financial goal? And if so, what are the sacrifices I’ll need to make?
What beliefs are making me think I need to make more money?

And then, go and put energy into the things you can do with your current income. If there’s something you’ve neglected, give it some extra love.

And don’t forget to pay attention to the things you can do because you’re not spending all your time chasing that massive paycheck or lucrative business deal.

That too is success.

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Keep being your gorgeous random self and doing the things that make you feel hopeful about what’s to come.

With kindness,
Aurora