It is essential that you believe in yourself. It’s the poverty mindset that says you can’t change. It is the poverty mindset that tells you that you are too old to go back to school and change jobs. If you believe you are worth more per hour, then others will start to believe it and usually over a period of time you will get paid more per hour.

Does this mean that everyone should change jobs? No, if you are in a low-paying employment situation, decide if that is where God wants you to be. Are you content there? If not, you will not prosper there. If the people you are working beside are not accumulating money, neither will you. Be prepared though—changing careers does take time and energy. Think what you would like to do….and think how much it pays.

One of the boards on which I serve is involved with micro-finance in developing countries of the world. Without going into a lot of detail, one of the reasons I love this concept is because it is helping people break out of a poverty mindset where there are no jobs available. Many developing nations have unemployment as high as 80%. There simply are no jobs. Micro-finance helps them to create their own jobs. They are required to write a business plan and learn how loans and interest work because they must pay the money back. The repayment rates run over 90%.  It is helping them to advance.

Is living paycheck to paycheck God’s will? We will take more time on that later, but for now, be convinced that God wants you to advance.    Sometimes when I teach on advancing, people will misunderstand and say, “Oh, I’ll have to get a second job to become more prosperous.” This is not it. God might have a better job for you, but it does not mean working twice or three times as hard. More on that next week.