For a long time, I wanted to make six figures.
It sounded like a goal.
A good one, actually.
Successful people made six figures.
Women who had figured their shit out made six figures.
Entrepreneurs who knew what they were doing definitely made six figures.
Except there are a whole lot of numbers between $100,000 and $999,999.
So what exactly did I mean?
$100,000?
$250,000?
$750,000?
And more importantly, what did I think would happen when I got there?
This is the problem with so many of the things we say we want.
We want to make six figures.
We want financial freedom.
We want time freedom.
We want to work for ourselves.
We want to travel more.
We want a successful business.
We want a simpler life.
We want to retire early.
We want enough money that we don’t have to worry about money.
Okay.
What’s enough?
Not theoretically.
Not according to Instagram.
Not according to the person you went to high school with who just bought a lake house.
Not according to some financial expert telling you that you’ll need $4.7 million to retire without having to survive on canned beans.
What is enough for you?
Because I’m starting to think one of the reasons we’re all so fucking tired is that we’re chasing goals with no finish lines.
We’ve never defined enough.
Enough Is an Actual Number
Money is probably the easiest place to see this.
We throw around phrases like “financial freedom” as though everyone knows what that means.
But financial freedom for someone who wants to live in a paid-off little house, garden, read library books and take a couple road trips every year is wildly different from financial freedom for someone who wants two homes, international travel and first-class airfare.
Neither one is wrong.
They just require significantly different amounts of money.
Which means “I want financial freedom” isn’t really a goal until you’ve defined the life that money is supposed to fund.
Maybe enough is $80,000 a year.
Maybe it’s $200,000.
Maybe you want to make a million dollars a year.
Fucking great.
But know why.
What is the money for?
What do you want it to make possible?
What do you want it to protect?
What do you want it to remove from your life?
Otherwise the number just moves.
You hit $100,000 and suddenly $250,000 feels like success.
You hit $250,000 and someone in your circle makes $500,000.
You finally get the thing you thought would make you feel secure and discover there’s an upgraded version available.
There always is.
Enough doesn’t mean you can’t want more.
It means more becomes a choice instead of a requirement.
And I think that’s a very different way to live.
We Do the Same Thing With Freedom
I’ve said for years that I want freedom.
Freedom is one of my highest values.
But freedom is another one of those words that sounds meaningful while being almost completely useless unless you define it.
Does freedom mean never having a boss?
Does it mean working four days a week?
Does it mean being able to take a Tuesday afternoon off?
Does it mean traveling for three months every winter?
Does it mean having enough money in the bank that a forgotten annual insurance bill doesn’t send you into a panic?
Does it mean taking a vacation without worrying that everything will fall apart while you’re gone?
Does it mean making coffee at 9:30 on a Wednesday morning and reading a book while everyone else is at work?
Those are completely different kinds of freedom.
And here’s the part I keep thinking about:
You can have a life that looks incredibly free from the outside and not actually feel free inside it.
You can own your business and be completely owned by your business.
You can have unlimited vacation and never take one.
You can make a lot of money and still feel terrified every time an unexpected expense hits.
You can have a flexible schedule that somehow expands until you’re working every available hour.
You can build the exact thing you thought would give you freedom and accidentally create another cage.
You defined the word.
But you never defined the conditions.
Enough Has to Work Inside Your Ecosystem
This might be the part we’ve been missing.
Enough can’t be defined in isolation.
It has to work inside the ecosystem of your actual life.
Your money affects your time.
Your time affects your energy.
Your energy affects your attention.
Your attention affects your relationships.
Your relationships affect how your life feels.
Everything touches everything else.
Making more money isn’t automatically better if it requires giving up every hour you wanted the money to buy back.
Having unlimited time isn’t freedom if you’re constantly worried about money.
A beautiful house isn’t necessarily a dream if maintaining it takes all your energy.
A successful business isn’t necessarily successful if you hate the person you have to become to run it.
And having more of one thing can quietly require spending enormous amounts of something else.
Maybe you could make another $50,000 a year.
But what would it cost you in time?
Maybe you could grow the business twice as big.
But what would it cost you in attention?
Maybe you could have the bigger house.
But what would it cost you in money and energy?
Maybe you could accomplish more.
But what would it cost you in peace?
Sometimes the answer is worth it.
Sometimes you gladly make the trade.
But at least then you’re making it on purpose.
There is no universal enough because there is no universal life.
That’s the part I wish we’d talk about more.
The World Is Very Good at Selling Us More
There is an entire economy depending on us not knowing when we have enough.
Enough house.
Enough clothes.
Enough beauty.
Enough money.
Enough achievement.
Enough productivity.
Enough followers.
Enough vacations.
Enough improvement.
There’s always another level.
Another upgrade.
Another person doing better.
Another thing you didn’t even know you needed until someone showed it to you.
And I’m not anti-more.
God knows I’m not anti-more.
I like beautiful things.
I like ambitious ideas.
I like making money.
I like creating things.
I like growing.
I like wondering what else might be possible.
But I don’t want to confuse my ability to want more with evidence that what I already have isn’t enough.
Those are not the same thing.
I can love my house and still want to change a room.
I can love my work and still want to build something new.
I can have enough money for the life I want and still be curious about making more.
I can be deeply satisfied and wildly ambitious at the same time.
Enough isn’t the death of ambition.
It’s the end of using ambition as proof that you’re not there yet.
Permission Slip: stop moving the finish line.
You Are Allowed to Define the Finish Line
I don’t think defining enough means settling.
Actually, I think it’s quite the opposite.
It requires you to stop using everybody else’s scoreboard long enough to decide what you actually want.
- What does a good Tuesday look like?
- How much money does your life actually require?
- How many hours do you want to work?
- How much responsibility feels interesting before it starts feeling heavy?
- How much space do you want to maintain?
- How much ambition feels exciting?
- How much rest makes you feel like yourself?
- How much is enough?
And maybe the answer changes.
Of course it does.
We’re allowed to renegotiate.
Enough at 27 probably isn’t enough at 47.
Enough while raising kids might look completely different from enough when they’re grown.
Enough during a season of building won’t look like enough during a season of resting.
Enough after a loss might look different than it did before.
Enough when you’re trying to prove yourself might look very different once you realize you don’t actually have to.
The point isn’t to pick a number and carve it into stone.
The point is to create a finish line you can actually recognize when you cross it.
Because otherwise, you don’t get to arrive.
You just keep running.
What If You Already Have Some of It?
This might be the question I’m most interested in now.
What if some of the things you’re still chasing are already here?
Maybe not all of them.
Maybe your finances aren’t where you want them to be.
Maybe your work still needs to change.
Maybe there are things you’re building and problems you’re solving and goals you absolutely still want to reach.
But what if you’ve already created pieces of the life you once wanted?
The flexible schedule.
The house full of people you love.
The work you once wished someone would pay you to do.
The ability to take the afternoon off.
The healthy relationship.
The quiet morning.
The garden.
The friends.
The freedom to say no.
The freedom to say yes.
Maybe enough isn’t one giant finish line we cross someday.
Maybe there are dozens of them.
And part of defining enough is giving ourselves a chance to notice when we’ve arrived at one.
I still want things.
I still have big ideas.
I still want to make money and build things and travel and create and see what else I’m capable of.
I’m not interested in shrinking my life in the name of contentment.
I’m interested in knowing the difference between desire and default.
I want more because I chose more.
Not because I forgot to decide what enough was.
So maybe before we set another goal, buy another thing, grow another business, chase another number or decide we’re somehow behind, there’s a better question to ask.
Not:
What do I want next?
But:
What would be enough?
Enough money.
Enough work.
Enough success.
Enough stuff.
Enough responsibility.
Enough growth.
Enough freedom.
Enough.
And then maybe one more question:
Do I already have some of it?
Because it would be a shame to spend our whole lives trying to get somewhere, only to discover we’d been arriving all along.
