Symptoms of Underearning
1. Time Indifference – We put off what must be done and do not use our time to support our own vision and further our own goals.
2. Idea Deflection –We compulsively reject ideas that could expand our lives or careers, and increase our profitability.
3. Compulsive Need to Prove – Although we have demonstrated competence in our jobs or business, we are driven by a need to re-prove our worth and value.
4. Clinging to Useless Possessions – We hold onto possessions that no longer serve our needs, such as threadbare clothing or broken appliances.
5. Exertion/Exhaustion – We habitually overwork, become exhausted, then under-work or cease work completely.
6. Giving Away Our Time – We compulsively volunteer for various causes, or give away our services without charge, when there is no clear benefit.
7. Undervaluing and Under-pricing – We undervalue our abilities and services and fear asking for increases in compensation or for what the market will bear.
8. Isolation – We choose to work alone when it might serve us much better to have co-workers, associates, or employees.
9. Physical Ailments – Sometimes, out of fear of being larger or exposed, we experience physical ailments.
10. Misplaced Guilt or Shame – We feel uneasy when asking for or being given what we need or what we are owed.
11. Not Following Up – We do not follow up on opportunities, leads, or jobs that could be profitable. We begin many projects and tasks but often do not complete them.
12. Stability Boredom – We create unnecessary conflict with co-workers, supervisors and clients, generating problems that result in financial distress.
Tools of Underearners Anonymous
1. Time Recording – We must be conscious of how we spend our time. We keep a written record to increase awareness and support our focus on goals and the actions required to achieve them.
2. Meetings – We attend UA meetings regularly to share our experience, strength, and hope, and to listen, in order to help ourselves and others recover from underearning.*
3. Sponsorship – We actively seek sponsorship with someone who has worked the Twelve Steps in UA and is willing to guide us in our recovery.
4. Possession Consciousness – We routinely discard what no longer serves us in order to foster a belief that life is plentiful and that we will be able to provide ourselves with what we need.
5. Service – Giving service is vital to our recovery. It is through service to others, and to the Fellowship, that we keep what has been so generously given to us.
6. Goals Pages – We set goals for all aspects of our lives, write them down, measure our progress and reward achievement.
7. Action Meetings – We organize action meetings with other UA members to discuss our earning concerns and to generate actions that will bring more prosperity into our lives.
8. Action Partner – We connect regularly with action partners regarding earning concerns in order to provide each other with accountability, continuity, and support.
9. Solvency – We do not debt one day at a time. Debting may lead to underearning, and in turn, underearning may lead to debting.*
10. Communication – We contact other UA members to seek support, to diminish isolation, and to reinforce our commitments to action.
11. Literature – We read UA Conference Approved Literature to strengthen our understanding of this compulsive disease and the process of recovery.
12. Savings – Saving money demonstrates faith in the future and acceptance of the fact that money is a tool vital to our prosperous vision. We create and follow a savings plan on whatever scale we are able.