Will‑climbing.

Why we wrote this

This page is for anyone who has been earning the same money for a while and has started to suspect that this is simply how things are going to be. Maybe the rent went up and the paycheck didn’t, or maybe you set a big goal last January, wrote it somewhere you could see it, and quietly stopped looking at it by March.

We built Willclimber around one idea, and we want the whole idea to be free and readable in one sitting, because you don’t need an app to use it. A pen and a calendar will do. The app only makes it easier to keep going, which, as you’ll see, is most of the work.

The idea is called will‑climbing, which is just will plus mountain climbing. It’s about the part of earning more that happens before anyone pays you: what you believe is possible for you, and whether you’re willing to take the next step anyway.

Luck is less random than it looks

Ask people why someone suddenly started earning more and most will say luck: the right person saw their work, a company happened to be hiring, a video took off. And they’re partly right, because chance is real and nobody plans the call that changes everything.

But chance has a habit of landing on people who are already moving. Big jumps in income are far more common than most of us think: in US data, about one worker in seven saw their earnings rise by half or more in a single year, and about as many saw them fall by half. Behind most of those jumps is an event, a new job, a move, a client, a break, and behind most of those events is someone who applied, asked, showed their work or said yes when it would have been easier to say no.

Luck isn’t random. Chance is. Being ready for it isn’t.

There’s an old image for this: before the hunt, the hunter draws the deer in the sand and plans the throw. Every result you can point to began as a picture in someone’s head, and that picture decided what they tried. This is the honest version of “belief works”: it doesn’t move money toward you by itself, but it decides whether you take the shot, how many shots you take, and whether you keep going after the first miss.

And it works in both directions. Believe a door is locked, and you’ll never try the handle, which means you will never find out it was open.

Source: Congressional Budget Office, earnings changes between 2002 and 2003.

What old sayings noticed

People have watched other people get lucky and unlucky for centuries, and the old sayings are a record of what they saw, even when they couldn’t explain it. A few of them describe the climb surprisingly well.

The world you were handed

Most of what feels like “how money works” wasn’t something you worked out. You were handed it, by the people who raised you, by your friends, by your field and your town. If money always felt hard at home, a thousand dollars more can feel like a mountain, and someone else making ten times that can seem to live in a different world. In a way they do, because they were handed a different picture.

Those pictures come in layers: what you personally believe, what your circle believes, what your generation was told, and underneath all of that the actual laws of nature. Without noticing, we sort every goal into a verdict.

Here’s the good news. Earning more is not in the first box, it isn’t a law of nature, and you don’t have to defy gravity to do it. You have almost certainly seen someone in your building, your trade or your feed who earns more than you doing work much like yours. That person is the proof that your number sits in “likely” or “unlikely”, and those verdicts can be moved.

They move the way muscles grow, with loads you can actually lift. Nobody starts with Everest. You start with the hill behind your house, and then a slightly bigger one.

Where you start

Before the first rung, take an honest look at three things.

What you earn now

Your real monthly take-home income, rough is fine. That number is your level, the ground you climb from. If you earn nothing yet, your first rung is simply your first payment.

Who you climb with

Notice who in your life argues for your limits, the people who always know why it won’t work, and spend a little less of your best energy there. Then look for people who are climbing too. A group climbs more easily than a lone climber, partly because everyone pulls everyone up and partly because opportunities travel through people: studies of job searches keep finding that many new jobs come through people we know only slightly, not through close friends.

Whether it’s really money you’re missing

Maybe you’re happy with your income and something else is missing, in which case this method is not your tool, and that’s fine. Will‑climbing is only about income. If there’s a specific amount you’re short of, keep reading.

Sources: Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties”, 1973; Rajkumar and colleagues, Science, 2022.

The fridge rule

Now the most important choice: how big the first rung is. If you earn $3,000 a month and set yourself $1,000,000, you will fail, and not because you’re lazy. It’s like asking someone who has never trained to clear a world-record bar. Some people win lotteries, but you can’t plan your year around being one of them.

So start with a rung you genuinely believe in, set for about a year ahead so there’s room to move. Many people find that a jump of up to about 20% feels real, so $3,000 becomes $3,500 rather than $6,000. Trying to double your income in a year sounds bold and usually fails, and the failure costs more than the year, because every miss makes the next goal harder to believe. Later, when rungs come more easily, the jumps can grow.

The size matters for another reason too, which is how the goal makes you feel.

Desperate wanting is loud. It pushes people into bad deals and get-rich schemes, and it makes them quit when nothing changes in a week. Calm wanting is quiet: you know the number, you expect it, and you keep working. That’s why the rung should be small enough to be calm about.

Write it like a fact

Write your rung down as a plain statement about next year, not as a wish. Not “it would be nice to earn more”, but this:

Then ask yourself the question that matters most at the start: which moves would convince me that I can earn this? Two more clients, a higher rate, a pay review, a better job, a few extra shifts. Name the one you’d actually make, and put a date on it.

These moves aren’t a ritual for the universe. They’re for you. A number you can explain is a number you can believe, and a number you believe is one you’ll keep working toward when the month gets hard. Doubt is allowed along the way; you don’t need perfect faith to send the email.

Two more habits help the number feel ordinary. Decide ahead of time what the extra money is for, the way a farmer builds the barn before the calf is born. And keep a life outside the number, a sport, a craft, a garden, something that gives your worry somewhere else to go, so that you aren’t staring at the goal all day.

The ticket and the hand

Ask anyone who has sold something and they’ll tell you that a sale often depends less on the product than on the person selling it. One seller moves an ordinary product with ease while another can’t sell something excellent at half price, and the difference is usually how sure each of them is.

The same goes for the things we hope will change our luck: a degree, a certificate, a new title, a signed contract. Two people get the same certification; one raises her rate the following week and mentions it to every client, while the other adds it to a profile and waits. The paper was identical, and what differed was what each of them believed it allowed them to do.

So treat every new ticket as permission to ask for more, and then actually ask. Name your price without apologizing for it, say what you want clearly, and let the other person decide. Remember the rule: never say no for someone else.

Rung by rung

Will‑climbing works in rungs. You go from one to the next, and each time you jump a little higher. When you reach a rung, you don’t wait for the year to end; you set the next one right away.

And if your income drops, the rule is calm: go back to your previous level and make that your goal. It means the rung was set a bit high or life got in the way, and neither is a reason for guilt. The climb continues from where you actually are.

Keep the number in sight without making it a shrine. Put it where you’ll glance at it every day, on your lock screen, on a note by the mirror, on the first page of your notebook. Just the number, with no commentary, until it stops looking like a dream and starts looking like next year, so that one day it shows up in your account and you aren’t even surprised.

People who have climbed for a long time sometimes say they stopped thinking about where each new number would come from. That’s a stage you reach after many rungs, when trust has been built by proof. At the start, do the opposite and name the move.

Finally, try the method honestly. If you set out to prove it doesn’t work, you’ll succeed, because there’s always evidence for whatever we’ve already decided. Give it a few real rungs before you judge it.

Climb without stepping on anyone

Money is neutral. It’s a measure of what you can do in the world, and it becomes good or bad only in someone’s hands. There are two kinds of will: the will to build something for yourself, and the will to win by pushing others down. The second kind sees wealth as other people’s lack and success as standing above everyone else.

Will‑climbing is only the first kind. The pie is not fixed, and your rung doesn’t take anything from anyone. Climb, and when you can, reach back and pull someone up behind you.

The whole method on one card

1. Know your level.What you take home now, roughly. No income yet? Your first rung is your first payment.
2. Pick a rung you believe in.About a year ahead; for many people, up to about 20% higher feels real.
3. Name the move.Where the extra comes from, and the date you’ll make the first step.
4. Never say no for someone else.Ask, and let them answer.
5. Keep it in sight.Just the number, every day, until it feels ordinary.
6. Check in once a month.Reached it? Set the next rung now. Fell below? Go back to your level, no guilt.
7. Climb with others, and fairly.Find climbers, and never climb on someone’s back.