6 Secrets to Financial Success.

Financial success is on everybody’s vision board. It is one of the bold New Year’s goals. However, financial success takes much more than earning more money. Money does not just follow hard work: it follows strategy, discipline, and vision.

People who seem to ‘have it all together’ are not financially lucky; they have mastered a set of timeless principles that anyone can learn. In this article, we will pull back the curtains on the real secrets to financial success.

1. Money Is a Tool.

Most people look at money as the reward after a long day at work, after a service is offered or when a business deal is done successfully. Yes, money is a huge reward, but what many people fail to understand is that it is also a tool.

Like any other tool, it is fashioned to make your life easier. For instance, a farmer is successful only when she harvests her crops. Her farm machinery and implements are a considerable part of the process, but they are not the primary focus of her success. They are simply a means to an end.

If the farmer only focused on the machinery, she would not have a harvest to talk about. If she only cared about how many machineries she has accumulated in her storehouse, success would have escaped her. Similarly, if you focus simply on accumulating money, financial success will elude you.

If you view money as a tool, you will use it as a tool that can make your life easier and better. Therefore, you will invest your money instead of hoarding it. You will use money to diversify your income and build a portfolio that can lead you to financial success.

2. Visualise Your Goals.

Ever heard of seeing is believing? Well, when it comes to financial success, you need to invert the phrase to ‘believing is seeing.’ Most of the time, people wait to be successful before they believe that they are.

However, reality is first created in the mind. Everything you have, you first imagined it. The house you live in, the job you work at, or the car you drive. You thought about it and took steps that allowed you to have it.

Therefore, you need to visualise your goals as a done deal. Visualisation helps drive your thoughts, actions, and money towards the success you seek.

3. Do not Give Up on Your Dreams.

A bulldog is renowned for its bite. It has an incredible ability to latch onto something or someone and not let go. That is the attitude and mindset you should adopt towards your dreams. When things get tough, and they will, your ability to latch on is what will get you through it.

Your tenacity to keep going while everyone else gives up will mean the difference between failure and success. Only 5% of all people achieve long-term financial success; make sure you are one of them.

4. Focus On the Bottom Line.

The end goal is financial success. So do not fall prey to the ‘rocking chair syndrome’. All movement and no progress. This includes a lot of preparation, researching, learning, and hardly doing any work. It is like thinking about writing, researching about it, and not writing a damn thing!

To achieve financial success, the money you generate is critical, but what you keep is even more important. You also need to develop an attitude of constant learning. Understand basic principles of wealth, like budgeting, tracking, saving, and investing.

5. Avoid Financial Stressors.

To achieve financial success, you need an enabling environment. This means minimum to zero financial stressors. Things like arguing about money, living beyond your means, too much debt and trying to keep up with the Joneses and Kardashians. You cannot thrive in such an environment because your focus will shift from achieving financial success to trying to cope with these stressors.

You should work towards being debt-free. However, should you take on one debt, a healthy debt level should be 35% of your net worth. Also, living within your means and not spending more than 60% of your income on consumption. Similarly, plan all your finances, including takeouts, parties and miscellaneous. Lastly, peer pressure only gets worse in adulting- flee from it like your life depends on it, because it does.

6. Celebrate Every Success.

Sometimes you never seem to attain success because you rush by it. You achieve a goal and swiftly move on to the next. It may have happened when you passed your first major academic exam, got your first job or bought your first car. The accomplishment was short-lived because you were soon working on the following item on the goal list.

Achieving goals is only impactful when you slow down and celebrate the win. Celebrate every financial milestone. Throw a party, take yourself out, treat yourself to a new dress or handbag. Hang up those certificates, celebrate anniversaries, and frame a copy of your first million-shilling cheque.

When you appreciate and recognise your success, it will breed further success. ♥