I have been earning, saving, and investing for more than a decade now. Amazingly, it’s only in the last 18 months that I have accumulated more than 85% of my total wealth. For the very simple reason that I am earning more now than at any other time in my career.

It’s natural to focus, and rightly so, on savings and cutting costs in your journey towards financial independence. It’s critically important to live below your means and optimize your spendings. However, shifting one’s focus on ways to increase earnings can lead to exponentially better outcomes. Not to mention that it feels lot more empowering.

Since increasing income can significantly accelerate you towards financial independence, it’s worth spending some attention on how one can do it. Three things have helped me grow my earnings exponentially in the last decade.

#1: Deliberately shift your mindset

You create your reality by what you focus on.

For many of us who have had humble upbringings, our default way to think is to cut back and squeeze every penny. It’s easy to spend disproportionate mental energy on maxing out deals and credit card rewards or cutting costs because those things are very tangible. They are important, but they don’t move the needle as much in large scheme of things. It has limited upside, but comes at cost of countless hours you spend fretting over saving a few bucks here and there.

I am not suggesting to not think about your spending at all. Instead, I am advocating that you spend a lot more time thinking of ways to increase earnings and providing value to others. Make that mindset shift deliberately.

It’s difficult in the beginning. Focussing on increasing earnings can be hard to start with. It’s lot more ambiguous and acting on it requires certain level of risk taking. But if you consistently put in effort, you start coming up with all sorts of ideas that are relevant to your circumstances. It can be up-skilling yourself, moving to a different job, changing career, starting a side hustle, investing money differently and many other ways. After a point, the fear of uncertainty transforms into fun and adventure.

Once you make the mindset switch, it feels more abundant no matter what the final outcome is.

#2: Follow your natural inclinations

You are building wealth so that it can help you live a happier and full life. But it doesn’t make sense to hate your life now so that one day you have enough money to live freely. It can’t work like that. The money you make that way will not give you deep and lasting satisfaction.

You should look at your work as your craft. It deserves reverence. You need to do everything possible in your capacity to land in place so that your work is fulfilling today, not tomorrow. That can only happen when your work is aligned with your natural inclinations.

I realized this from my own work experience. In early part of my career, I was a generalist manager working in tech startups in India. I liked my work environment and I was good at what I did. But I didn’t derive deep satisfaction from my work. I always wanted to build things that delight users. It took me time to move to a profession where I could do it day in and day out. And that made a huge difference to my happiness levels and to my earnings.

If you enjoy what you do, you can do a lot more of it. You will spend more hours and more easily overcome obstacles. Work of your choices gives you lot more staying power. You naturally become a long-term thinker now that your present is comfortable. Your skills grow faster. When you are in it for more than just money, just deliver more. As a result, your earnings shoot up with time.

You will enjoy the journey at the very least. Even if your earnings do not grow as fast as you desired, you would still be happy and enthusiastic because you won’t be worn out. That itself prolongs your runway of active working life, giving you opportunities to earn lot more.

#3 Move into a rewarding environment

My sister work for a non-profit organization and is highly competent. She consistently works 12+ hours six days a week. But she make peanuts because small companies in non-profit sector are sweatshops that don’t have a lot to give. Many who are less talented than her and who work way less earn a lot more because they work in right industries and in better companies.

The same set of skills will be compensated better when you are in an environment where you fit. If you are a software engineer or a tech worker, it’s better to be based out in one of the tech hubs or work for a tier-1 tech company. These companies generate – or have potential to generate – massive cashflows and so they pay really well. You use same skills and work almost equally hard, but your earnings will multiply when compared to similar jobs in other industries. Compound that over a few years and it can make a real difference to your wealth outcomes.

You need to evaluate what moving into right environment means in your context. It might be switching over to a different industry, changing careers into a new role, working for a different kind of employer, starting a side business, serving higher value clients, or moving to a different geography. You need to figure out what part of the market rewards skills you have in the best way. Then make all the efforts in your control to move to that environment.

The suggestions I share above is what has worked for me over the last decade. I hope it helps you in some way to achieve your own financial goals and realize your potential.