There is one point about money that is more important than any other, and that’s to understand what is required to generate wealth. Financial planning only matters if you have the potential to produce money in the first place.
So here it is, the one thing you need to understand to generate wealth for yourself is…
You give wealth to yourself.
That’s it. You won’t achieve wealth until you understand that:
No one else is responsible for giving you wealth. Not your parents, your boss, your spouse or your business partner.
Waiting for more recognition, more approval and more expertise is just a waste of time—PLENTY of people who don’t have your level of recognition and expertise are already generating more wealth than you are.
YOU decide your level of deservingness. And deserving has nothing to do with what you do. You decide what you’re worth, and although you might not get 100% of what you decide immediately, you’ll get a lot more than if you have no opinion on the subject.
Wealth is waiting for you to DO something. Good thoughts are important. A vision is essential. But if you don’t match those things with consistent action, you won’t get wealthy.
Wealth is not a one-time event. Actual wealth is about re-evaluating your life and behaviors so you can continue to make it easier on yourself to generate wealth.
Wealth doesn’t magically rearrange itself. Life may get easier when you make more money, but that doesn’t mean you’ll have no debt and a huge cash reserve. You have to consciously plan how to retain your wealth. If you leak money when you don’t have much, you’ll still leak it when you have a lot.
You can’t be afraid to say what you want. Once you commit to wanting something, you more consciously notice the disparity between what you want and what you have—which is why so many people keep their heads down and mouths shut and just keep doing what they are doing. Sometimes it feels like it’s easier to accept your circumstances. Change is uncomfortable—you might have to change jobs, careers, relationships or environment. But once you set the intention to have something specific—like more money—the path gets clearer.
Start NOW
Make this the year…the year you quit settling. That doesn’t mean you flip everything around in the outside world immediately; you change your attitude. You look for this attitude of settling and how it plays out into different areas of your life.
You examine how you allow people to treat you. You question that for all you do as an employee, friend, wife, husband etc., are you getting what you’re giving, or could you ask for more? You’d be surprised at how happy most people are to give you more (and wondered when you were going to ask).
Most people say they will wait until they are making more money or their businesses stabilize to change something in their lives. That’s backwards. You have to realize you deserve the better life—and get that first—to allow greater wealth to come in.
And this doesn’t mean you have to go out and spend lots of money for better things in order to “not settle.” But what I’ve found is that sometimes if someone has had some trouble giving their holey, old sweats to Goodwill, suddenly it becomes easy to let go.
Or maybe another person hasn’t been making herself feel pretty the way she usually did through doing her hair and makeup. That doesn’t mean she needs a $250 haircut and $500 worth of cosmetics to “not settle;” she just needs to move in that direction of more regular self care.
And TIME is the greatest place people tend to settle. How are you at managing your time? Are you spending it exactly how you’d like to be spending it? Are you compensated in a way that you feel good about the time you spend at work? Are there issues with your time, like saying yes to doing things you’d rather not be doing? Start placing more boundaries on your time and develop criteria for accepting demands on it.
Actions This Week
What’s your story? Think about your money past and ask yourself where you have been waiting for permission to earn what you deserve. Emotions are a good indicator of issues with specific people.
Where’s the opportunity? Take stock of your life (not just from a money standpoint), and decide where you have been settling for less than you deserve and identify one step you can take to upgrade in that area.
What’s your goal? Write down everything you would like to fund in the next year and next to each item, write approximate dollar amounts. I find that the clearer people get on what their lives cost, the faster they start making more money.
P.S. One simple step to getting started might be reviewing my 10 Steps To Being A money Boss – you can get that for free here.