Why More Money Never Feels Like Enough

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Have you ever felt like no matter how much you accomplish,  it's never enough?  We reach one goal and almost immediately we're chasing the next one.  We wonder if we're doing enough,  achieving enough,  having enough, or even being enough.  If that sounds familiar,  you're in the right place.  Welcome to the Freedom of Nuv Podcast.  I am Kim Patten.

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author of Pivot and your host.  This is a place where we have honest conversations about ambition,  identity,  parenthood,  career,  money,  comparison, and what it really means to build a life that's true to ourselves.

00:57
Because we don't have to earn our worth,  we are already enough.  It is time to stop building rockets to space and start living in the world we have already built.  Let's discover what enough looks like, starting now.

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in my 20s, I had a number. I told myself that if I could just reach that salary or see that balance in my net worth, I will finally feel safe. And yes, life did change and now I'm married with two children and we had set of different numbers in our 30s. But something strange happened.

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Now, in my 40s, we pay off our house six years ago and debt free. We make double the amount of money and bigger titles than when we're in our 20s or 30s. We hit the number. And instead of feeling like I had crossed a finish line, I feel like the fog had just shifted further down the road.

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Suddenly the old number felt small, the new number felt necessary. I kept telling myself, but what about inflation? What about the unknown? I realized that money is the ultimate moving goalpost because we use it to try and solve an emotional problem. The need for safety with a calculator. Today we are talking about the number in the fog.

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and why your bank account will never be the one to tell you that you have done enough.

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We are taught that financial security is a calculation of expense versus income. But for many high achievers, the feeling of not having enough has nothing to do with the math. Growing up in a family where financial security was the highest virtue, I view money as armor. If I had a nut of it, nothing could hurt me. But the problem with armor is that it's heavy. We spent so much time polishing it.

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and reinforcing it that we forget to actually live the life it is supposed to protect. I used to look at people like Taylor Swift and think, if she isn't done, I shouldn't stop. But then I realized we aren't even playing the same game.

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Taylor Swift's scorecard is built for greatness, for legacy, for records, for being the best in the music world. And she's winning that game. But my scorecard? My scorecard is built for presence.

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I want to be the mom who's actually there,  not just physically in the room while my brain is still in the spreadsheets or the meeting. I want to be present for my family and my kids without the weight of what's next pulling me away. I have to be honest with you, by the standards of a 20 years old or even 30 years old version of me, I have already made it.

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Our houses pay off. We have reached a milestone I once thought would buy me a lifetime apiece. And yet, the fog didn't go away. Even after hitting my goals, I found myself looking at the billionaires and the industry giants and feeling like I was falling behind. I forgot we're very different people. And just because others are pursuing doesn't make it right.

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or right for me at least. I am very grateful to be able to step back in my career when my heart was calling me home and take a career break. I treasure that once in a lifetime precious opportunity to raise my kids when they were little and no amount of money can buy that. I know I will regret it if I didn't make that decision. And yes, I realize everyone is different.

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So what kind of life would you built if you have the freedom today? So a reader reached out to me through email recently.  She's an attorney and she was writing to me about that feeling of being trapped by the paycheck. She told me she will quit tomorrow to be home with her kids if she can just had abundant amount of money in the bank.

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And I was reading her email and I found myself wanting to write back and just ask one thing. How much is that exactly? Because abundant isn't a number. If she doesn't know the exact figure, she will never see it through the fog. She would hit 1 million, then 1, 2, she would hit 5, then worry about 10. Without a defined exit,

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She's not waiting for the bank balance. She's waiting for permission slip that will never arrive. And I have to be honest with you. I struggle with this too. Even now, after all the work I have done,  that not enough voice still whisper to me.

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When a project goes well, my brain doesn't naturally say, great, let's rest, say, how do we scale this? How do we make it bigger? I realized that if I'm going to ask my reader for her number, I have to be brave enough to look at my own. I have to admit that the fog isn't just out there in the world.

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It is in me and the only way I'll stop pretending the number will save us and start doing the hard work of deciding what that number is and to be done when we hit that number. So how do we stop the chase? It starts by defining enough in events. If you don't pick a number before you start running, you will run until you collapse.

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So for many high achievers, the goal is not to stop working, but to have the freedom to work on what we love, with who we love, and have time to live the life that make us feel truly fulfilled and happy. And this is a quote from Morgan Household from his book, Psychology of Money.

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Use money to gain control over your time. Because not having control of your time is such a powerful and universal drag on happiness. The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, pays the highest dividend that exists in finance.  True financial freedom isn't having more than everyone else. It is having the courage to say,

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This is enough for me to live a happy and fulfilled life. It is about moving from a mindset of scarcity, where there's never enough, to a mindset of security of you're enough, where I have what I need to do, what I love. Let that be a career break. Start or work for a cause you believe in. Career change or work part time.

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Take a less paying job to work remote or with flexible schedule. This week, I want you to look at your goal number. Whether it's a salary or saving goal or a house price, ask yourself, if I hit this tomorrow, would I actually stop or would I just keep moving the goalpost again?

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If the goalpost is always moving, you aren't running a race. You're just a hamster on a wheel. And that's a poor person behavior. It is time to hop off. Your bank account is a tool, not a report card.  How would you use that tool to create a meaningful life for you and your loved ones?  Thank you so much for spending this time with me today.  It really means a lot to me.

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If this conversation resonated with you,  I would love for you to follow the show so you don't miss what's ahead.

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And if you know a friend who needs to hear this conversation,  would you share this episode with her?  You never know.  It might be exactly the encouragement she needs today.  New episodes are released every Tuesday and I can't wait to have you back.  You can also find more episodes,  stories and resources at freedomofenough.com.  Until next time,  remember.

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The world will always ask for more, but you get to decide what enough looks like.