My Million Dollar Experiment: My Results In 12 Months
In January 2021 I joined a 12-month social experiment to see if it's possible for regular people like me to generate a million dollars in one year. Specifically, the experiment was focused on whether mindset, attitudes towards money, and energy levels affect how much money flows (or doesn’t) in our lives.
My Money Mindset
During this experiment, I discovered a lot about my attitudes towards money and put a heavy focus on my relationship with it. Specifically, this experiment has got me into better habits in terms of how I budget and manage my money on a daily basis, as well as how I view making money.
It’s been a really uncomfortable process at times, and there have still been days where old views and habits have cropped up but I’m glad I kept going when it was difficult.
I still have a long way to go though but I’ve seen a clear correlation between the shifts I’ve made and my income which has been surprising. So I’d encourage you wholeheartedly to work on your attitudes towards money if you are working towards financial freedom or just want to increase your income.
Creating Multiple Revenue Streams
One of the main practical things that I have done during this experiment has been to start creating multiple revenue streams. It will likely take months or years for some of them to generate any real income but just taking baby steps to diversify my sources of revenue has given me more peace of mind and confidence about my finances.
In the last 12 months, alongside my full-time job and blogging, I have taken on more client work as a Virtual Assistant, invested savings into the stock market, opened an Etsy store and online store, sold unwanted belongings, and experimented with bitcoin.
Tracking Progress & Budgeting
In January I created a dashboard in my Google Drive so that I could easily track my progress during the experiment. On this dashboard, I also tracked all income and where it came from and used it as a tool to help me manage my money more effectively.
Increasing My Income
The result of my efforts was that I increased my income by 42% year on year. I got to Step 16 in the experiment so I am very far away from a million dollars (the last 4 steps are huge) but the additional income helped me massively with unexpected emergencies, and enabled me to travel at the end of last year.
Key Takeaways
After 12 months doing the Million Dollar experiment, and almost doubling my annual income year on year, these are my 3 key takeaways on generating more money. I hope you find them helpful!
1. Work On Your Mindset Daily
Read articles (like this one!) blog posts and books, listen to podcasts, practice positive affirmations.
2. Diversify Your Income
Just relying on one source of income is always a risk, so I encourage you to explore other ways of generating income. There are countless ways to make money, it's just a matter of finding the right things for you.
3. Don’t Be Afraid To Experiment
Be open-minded and willing to experiment when it comes to making money. I made some small risks and occasionally lost money when I was trying different things, but I made significantly more money than I lost. Just be mindful to not experiment with money that you really can’t afford to lose. One way is just to have a small amount of money that’s for experimenting which is how I approached it.
When I started the experiment I really wasn’t sure what I would be able to achieve, and while I have big goals still to hit, almost doubling my income in 12 months is a great result. So I hope that this article will inspire and motivate you if you are working towards similar financial goals. And if you have any tips on making more money, I’d love to hear them!