When you were a child, your parents, like mine, may have measured your height with pencil markings on a wall. "Look how much you've grown!" they'd say, beaming with pride as they marked each new height. I remember feeling so happy and relieved in those moments - I didn’t feel like I was growing, but those simple pencil marks put wind in my sails; they gave me tangible proof of progress.

But nobody does this for adults. Especially not with money.

Here’s what happens instead: we move to neighborhoods that match our current income level, surrounding ourselves with people who have roughly what we have. We've most likely forgotten where we were financially 10 or 15 years ago, because we have a “new normal.”

Your brain, meanwhile, was designed to be survival oriented which means it has a bias to spot problems, not progress. When we don’t recognize our growth, when we think we've plateaued, our financial confidence wanes and that often leads to unwise decisions. We may invest or spend impulsively, or fearfully, out of frustration. 

But the reality for most of us, despite all the financial mistakes we've made (and we've all made them), is that we have grown significantly over the past decade. We just can't see it because we're looking in the wrong direction; often comparing ourselves to someone else, instead of measuring against where we were 10 or 20 years ago. And, even if your actual numbers have decreased, you have grown in many other ways.

Here's what I recommend: look online at the year 2000 or 2010 statements from your financial accounts, the value of your real estate, and social security. Don't just glance—really look.

This isn’t just a nostalgic exercise; seeing your progress sends a powerful message to your brain. The end result is financial confidence. 

Confidence, in any endeavor, breeds success and a growth mindset. And when we are confident about money, we tend to earn, spend, save, and invest wisely.

Your parents were right to celebrate your growth. Is it time to start doing it for yourself?