How you feel and think about money is far more important than how you earn it. That’s why I spend most of my time coaching designers in correcting and developing good money mindsets. Because if you don’t feel and think like a successful, wealthy designer… you’ll never become one.

You need to think, feel and act like a successful, published and financially secure designer in order to achieve the lifestyle you want. You can’t focus on changing and growing when you’re worried about your bank account.

Here are three simple money magnets to help you develop a healthy money mindset.

Magnet #1 – Becoming responsible for your success.

If you find yourself blaming others for your circumstances, such as “All I ever get are cheap clients, and nobody is spending any money,” then you’re not accepting responsibility for yourself. Worse yet, you’re buying into the idea that you’re powerless to change anything.

Remember, you can’t always control your circumstances but you can always control how you react to them.

Magnet message … Successful designers create their own lives and their own success. You only need to believe that you can step up and create your own success in order to become successful.

Magnet #2 – Learn about making money from financially successful designers.

If you’re taking advice from friends and other designers who are struggling to make ends meet, chances are you’ll have the same problems as them. Many times I’ve had conversations with designers who tell me that they’re earning a mere $85 per hour, with a 15% purchasing fee, because that’s all their particular area will support. They assure me they’ve talked to all their designer friends about it, and they wouldn’t dare try to charge more. Yet… in the exact same city… I coach a designer that’s comfortably charging fees based on $175 per hour and a 40% purchasing fee.

Magnet message… Look to mentors who have proven experience in making and managing money in the design business. If they can do it, you can too!

Magnet #3 – Keep your bookkeeping in order.

It’s puzzling to me, but I know many designers who don’t keep track of their income and expenses. Frankly, if you can’t take care of the money that you’ve earned, then it’s unlikely that the universe is going to bring you more. When you forget to track and bill your time, and leave all of your invoices and receipts in a big pile so you don’t know where you stand financially, it’s like you’re running blindfolded through a maze. Worse yet, when tax time comes around, sorting it all out becomes one big headache.

Magnet message… Create a simple system for organizing invoices and receipts on a weekly basis to help make the task easy and manageable. It’s empowering to know how much money you’ve created and once you start tracking your income, you’ll often find this income is way more than you are giving yourself credit for. Trust me… it really feels good!

Another Money Magnet I teach is developing the habit of talking about money comfortably and clearly with your family and your clients without having any emotional baggage attached. This concept is harder to grasp than you think, as you may have come from a family where money conversations were volatile and confrontational, so being a natural people pleaser, you just try to avoid the subject.

This habit carries over into our money conversations with our clients. Your request for a budget conversation tends to be so very brief that prospective clients often don’t give you the information you need to properly create the design project. This habit results in design presentations with unplanned client sticker shock and unpaid “do-overs” for you, which amounts to wasted time and effort.

It’s a fact… when a client says they don’t know what their budget is, you accept that answer because you don’t want to seem too pushy. And off you go, wasting your time guessing what you should for design for them.

The real truth?

You end up not knowing how to help a potential client come up with a reasonable budget that fits the job and their personal financial situation, so you just avoid it.

Another truth? A client with an “I don’t know my budget” answer is actually crying for help.

Be sure to join me in La Jolla, CA for the 2014 Money and Pricing Breath through Summit to discover more about these truths and how to make MORE Money, attract BETTER Clients, and live with LESS Stress!

There are a few seats left, so check out more Summit information here and hope to see you soon!