An Overview of
Introduction: If your goal is to become a millionaire, simply step up your earnings game; or, to improve the way you live and work, the process you have been learning is the place to begin. It makes sense, prepares you to think strategically, and gives you the framework, with steps toward your goals. It is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Thinking like a millionaire is healthy, research based, and used by most millionaires today.
In this article, the process will be put into a system of six basic parts. The following outline provides a visual of the steps.
1. Examine yourself
2. Know your passion
3. Know your goals
4. Develop the mindset
A. Gain self-discipline
B. Learn to think strategically
C. Become frugal
5. Develop the plan
6. Maintain, Manage, and Monitor
These steps will guide you up the hill and keep you on the top. This will not be easy, but worth every moment you spend transforming the whole you. This plan is personal, leading to your goals, whatever they are. This plan is flexible to your changing goals, your station in life, and fueled by your passions.
Examine yourself: The very first thing required of you is to make an honest evaluation of yourself. This is not easy and takes some time by yourself for several days. It requires writing out the things you discover, finding your values and beliefs, and taking a long, hard look at your habits, good and bad. You must think back through your life and try to find your passions, which may be broad, or specific, or both. You have to try and rediscover how you thought as a child, and the freedoms of play, fun, and few requirements from life.
Somehow, growing up, we were squeezed from the tube of youth into getting a degree, work, and paying bills. Our lives became more complicated as we formed more intimate relationships, and a want for bigger, expensive things. In all of that, you get a bit lost -- or maybe a lot lost. Now is the time to find that person you really are, and scrape away all the world's trappings that have become a cell. Decide what you want to be your core values, what characteristics you really want to have, and what goals do you have. Your core values are the specific things you believe are important to you. Characteristics you want to develop are those of someone who impressed you as you looked through a child's eyes. Your goals must be based in an area about which you are passionate.
During this examination, write down what you need to shed, and what you need to put on to live a life that is healthy, and matches your true values and real characteristics you want to become part of your character. Think about what others really think of you, about people who don't like you, comments made, and look through the words at the picture they see. Look at the praise you have been given. Do you cling to that and hold to that as a claim you are worthy? Praise is not where your worth comes from. Figure this all out, write it down and keep all the charts, papers, and notes. You will need reminders along the way.
Know Your Passion: Some people's passion is obvious because they are heavily involved in it in work and outside of work. They are usually happier than others, have more energy and are more creative in their work and play. Your passion might be in the area of music or more specifically, rock and roll or orchestral works. It might be in the area of math and science, history or a specific era, a geographical place, wildlife, hunting, or the ocean. Some people love boats, trains, cars and planes. Others live for sewing, crafting, writing, or painting. Knowing where your passion lies will guide you into work that will be fed by that love of whatever it is. Before you can move on you need to know you will be pursuing a job, a career, an area of work that feeds your passion in some way. Learn everything you can about those passions, work in the field and bring a wide vision to your search.
If your passion is music, you might work with a symphony, teach, write music or even manage the books for a music store. If your passion is the outdoors there is now end to a vocation that you might find and enjoy. Don't allow the thought that a job pays very little. That will be addressed in your strategic plan. In any industry, if you are willing to put in the time and energy and hard work, you will find ways to build your income. The most important piece to remember is that by not working in an area that feeds your passion you will be unhappy, burn out, or lack energy to work hard enough to build wealth. With technology so embedded in life, it will provide possibilities you just have yet to dream of.
Know your goals: Your goals are what you want out of life. They might initially be broad but you will chop them up into steps to that one large goal. Most goals fit together. When you reach one goal it is a step in the next goal and so on. Here is where you decide what you want from life and what you want to give back to life. If you are to be a healthy individual you've got to think beyond yourself. You will not make a million dollars without other people who share the planet so you have to help keep the plant and its people healthy. What happens to others around the globe ultimately will affect you.
This might be a good time to get out and talk to people, learn all you can about work in an area of passion, and get a feel for working that you might not think of. Without learning in various ways you stymy yourself. The whole world is out there for you to discover. Learn about that world, the people and all there is to do for work and play. Do more than network. Push yourself into doing things you don't normally do, places you don't normally frequent and spend time with people beyond your comfort zone. The sky is the limit, unless you want to be an astronaut and then you are pretty much limitless.
Never sit back and settle. Work hard to understand who you are and what your goals are. It is important to the rest of your life.
Develop your mindset: In your journey to get the mindset of a millionaire, it is important to understand how the brain functions. Most people use very little of their brain. To become effective at the hard work and focus a millionaire mindset requires, you have to spend time throughout your life time opening up your whole brain. You have to force yourself to go to places you have never dared go before. If you are creative, they develop the logical side. If you seem to live in the logical side then develop the creative side. The brain is not really this simple. The parts of the brain are very complicated and are interwoven, but if you begin to do things that have never appealed to you before, things that are new to you, you will be waking up the parts of your brain seldom used. What you have to understand is you must do this throughout your life.
A great part of the mindset is self-discipline. Developing the right mindset will take time and work. Putting both good and bad habits on paper during your self-examination are the place to start. Begin to break the bad habits and develop the good ones. Learn to eat, act, and life in healthy ways. Your behavior in your personal life spills over into all other areas of your life. You can't separate them. You are the whole package. If you have negative attributes, they will hold you back. You have to be physically fit, not look like a weight lifter or body builder. The bigger point of self-discipline is to get control of yourself. If you aren't in control of yourself, you will not have what it takes to become a millionaire.
When you have worked to gain self-discipline, and you see your new habits are beginning to become your normal, then you can begin to think strategically. You can begin to think about pulling your passions and goals together. During this time that you are developing your mindset, you should not make big decisions, like quitting your job. Just turning around and moving yourself in this new direction will give you the energy to sustain where you are. You don't want to make decisions until your mind and body are ready. Strategic thinking means you are in control of your behaviors, you understand your passions, your goals, and yourself and are already working hard to maintain that.
Frugality is the beginning of the financial piece. Every millionaire that has ever given an interview or written a book insists that their frugality is a big part of the plan that got them to where they are today. After years of practicing frugality, many have found it just became part of who they now are, and continue acting in frugal ways, though they don't have to. Many live way below their means. Think about your own life. What do you haul around that you don't need and is costly to maintain. How do you spend your money? Are you in control of your spending? You have to know how much money you have, what life is costing you and what you are earning, both from work and investments. Those who have been down this path say there is nothing too small to earn and save. When you begin early, compound interest can buffer your wealth immensely. Those who are rich today did not get it through get- rich-quick ideas. It was a hard and long road, based in hard work, frugal living, and enjoying what they do on a daily basis.
Develop Your Plan: Only after you have prepared by working through the process presented above, are you ready to make plans. The reason is that your mind has to be able to think strategically, and you have to use your whole brain. Don't begin making decisions until you've got everything going for you. You also are not ready to make planning decisions until you have self-control. The right mindset is one that recognizes your strengths and weaknesses and works on both. Increase your strengths and get rid of the weaknesses. Learn and study, move out of your safe zone, and let the world open up to your view.
When you have done this, you will be able to develop your plans to your goals, through your passions and with a successful mindset. This is a good time to find a mentor, hire a financial adviser, and possibly consult an attorney. Your goals should be so specific anybody can tell if you've reached them. You should decide now how you will determine if you have reached your goals. Find some physical and concrete way to measure your progress. Your goals should have steps, or short-term goals that mark the path to the bigger goals. If your big goal is to make a million dollars, and one of the steps is to purchase an expensive sports car, then your short-term goal is working against your long-term goal. This is critical. Make the steps compatible with the big goal. You cannot say you want to be wealthy and spend like you are. People do it every day and we think they are rich. They know they are in debt. Wait until you honestly have wealth enough to manage continued savings, maintenance of that wealth, and then get the car.
Maintain, Manage, and Monitor: After you've developed your plan and you begin to take the steps toward your first million, or whatever your goals are, you have to continue to maintain all the work you've done on yourself. You have to manage your life to keep a balance between passion, job, personal life, goals, and finances. To be sure that you don't lie to yourself or move to the fantasy world, you need to come up with some concrete measurements to monitor. For example, for a while you need to examine yourself daily in the evening. You need to look at your checklist of characteristics you worked on, healthy habits, and financial behaviors. You will continue this until you see you are successful on a very regular basis. Then, you have to monitor your steps to your goals. When you get up in the morning, the first thing you should think about is what you will do today to bring each step closer to fulfillment. Get that first $1,000 in savings. Open a mutual fund account. Move to a cheaper place to live. Drop the expensive gym and use the workout place in the apartment, or change to running or hiking or biking. Stop eating out and buying fast food. You get the picture. It has to become a way of life. Keep that plan handy to keep it in your focus. No step is too small. Each on leads to something bigger and bigger and before you know it you are really earning wealth, in a job that makes you happy.
Summary: Changing a life style that goes against how you were brought up, or different than you have been living, will be very difficult, but not impossible. Only the strategic thinkers who have self-control and work in something they enjoy are able to maintain. Use of the Internet will be the best tool to maximize your earnings, diversify how you bring in income and continue to learn and grow. You may lose friends who don't like the new you. You may find yourself discovering new things about yourself and you may open up a whole world you did not know existed. If you can wrap you head around this process and work very hard, you will think like a millionaire and that is the way to making it happen.
