I’ll never forget a conversation I once had with a former underearner. She told me that in every job she’d had, she found out she was underpaid and would always quit.

Finally, she was in a job she loved. Once again, she discovered she was making far less than a co-worker in the same position. But this time, she really didn’t want to leave.

Though terrified, she worked up the nerve and asked her boss for a raise. 

“Sure” he said, without missing a beat.

At that moment, she had a stunning realization. I’ve come to call it the High Earners Epiphany. 

Here’s a foolproof strategy for getting unstuck. You must let go of where you are to get to where you want to go.

Clinging to the security of the familiar ledge prevents us from discovering what awaits us in the future.

The ledges in our lives offer the illusion of safety, but in truth their only value is to keep us hanging.

These ledges take many forms, both concrete and intangible. They can look like unfulfilling jobs, unpleasant relationships, inappropriate goals, untrue beliefs, unhealthy habits, bottled-up emotions.

Every successful woman I interviewed who finally let go (as hard as it was), cited that single act as the springboard to higher earnings and happier times.

If success seems to elude you, here’s a guaranteed approach for finding it. Do what you don’t want to do, are afraid to do, think you can’t do.

Whenever you decide to do something different—whether it’s making more money or changing careers—success always lies just outside your comfort zone.

The only way you’ll succeed is by stretching beyond what feels comfortable to what may seem impossible. .

The ability to tolerate discomfort—doing what might not feel good, but doing it anyway—is the only path to financial success.

For us pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding creatures, that’s a very tall order. It’s certainly not comfortable to face up to a challenge, acknowledge a problem, and it’s especially unnerving to eschew our habitual ways of handling them.

Yet, that’s exactly what’s required. The real work in raising the bar is to stop doing the same old thing you’ve always done, to try out new strategies, to ignore false alarms, to resist the urge to quit, and refuse to fall back into familiar terrain.