The year I crossed six figures in income, I didn’t celebrate. I panicked. Full-body paranoia. I remember sitting at my desk, running the numbers over and over again like the IRS was gonna kick down the door any minute. Not because I’d actually done anything wrong—but because making $100K felt illegal to me.
Why? Because my financial setpoint was wired for half that.
I’d spent so many years broke—like digging-change-out-of-the-sofa-to-buy-eggs broke—that when the money finally started flowing, my nervous system short-circuited. My body thought it was a trap. I wasn’t used to having enough, let alone extra. So I assumed something had to be off. Like the universe doesn’t just let people like me earn that kind of money without some catch.
That’s the insidious part about setpoints. They’re not logical—they’re emotional. They’re the stories you absorbed as a kid, the ceilings you inherited from your parents, the subconscious thermostat set by whatever chaos you grew up in. Mine was stuck at “barely scraping by,” and any attempt to change that triggered guilt, fear, and a deep sense of fraudulence.
Here’s the kicker: If I hadn’t identified that emotional setpoint, I would’ve found a way to blow up my own progress. Raise your income but don’t raise your internal ceiling? You’ll sabotage yourself back to “normal” real quick.
It’s not just about what you earn. It’s about what you believe you’re allowed to earn.
So, yeah—I hit $100K and thought I was breaking the law. Turns out, I was just breaking an old belief system.
And that, my friend, is the first real milestone worth celebrating.
