Developing a mindset that helps you acquire the basic necessities of life is not enough. This is because every single day it gets more expensive to live and if your income isn’t rising then you’re simply falling behind. As such, here are four mindsets I believe you need if you want to start seeing that money come rolling in!
Mindset #1: You can’t earn money working all the time
A 9–5 job will likely only ever be able to support your basic living needs. The sad truth is that it generally can’t help you grow your wealth. A job is for people on survival mode, but if you want to go one better and thrive, you need to change your mindset. Working a 9–5 will drain you mentally, leaving you little to no time to invest in higher-pay work such as freelancing or starting a business.
Most people have dreams and ideas of starting and running their business and having the prestigious tag of “boss.” However, something always prevents people from executing the plan — most of the time, it’s capital that’s the problem. People never feel really ready to leave their jobs for an uncertain endeavor such as starting a business or beginning life as entrepreneurs. You would probably like to bide your time and save up as much as possible. However, the truth is that there is never the right time to start your own business.
Having this mindset means you have to do away with the fear of risk and shame. As I have said a couple times, many people are successful today because they did not give up but tried one more time. Shame is the one thing you must give up to be wealthy and successful! The reality is, to become wealthy, you have to provide a product or service that is not common. To do this, you have to take risks and put yourself out there.
For example, Bill Gates had to drop out of Harvard University to begin Microsoft. He was learning about technology, but if he didn’t change his mindset, he would have ended up with a 9–5 job. Bill developed the right mindset and became a partner in a company, and well, you know the rest.
Among the other disadvantages of the 9–5 mindset, it makes you too comfortable to try things and take risks. You keep telling yourself that you have an income, can pay the bills, and still have a little left to save so you’re comfortable. So you ask why should you bother with anything else? But what if you lose that job? Change is the one constant thing, and if you don’t move, life will move you. Therefore shake up your life, make that move and see how one change leads to another!
Even if you don’t lose your job, your services are only helping to build someone else’s wealth. When will you begin to build yours?
Spending about 40 hours every week contributing to the development of another person’s asset is quite a lot of time, don’t you think? What if you had all that time to yourself? Once you’re ready to get out of the ‘comfortable career rut,’ you can then dedicate that many hours to your own assets. Money spent on your business can be used to deduct from your tax bill too which is always a plus!
People also fail to realize that time is of more value than money. Money can be saved and invested to generate more by itself, that is, if you know how. However, time is very fleeting. No one can recover the time that has been spent. Just as I said earlier, when you give your time to work for other people, you cannot regain that time. Sure, you earn while at that job, but what happens to the time left when you finish your duties early? It’s wasted. The organization you’re working for owns your time. They control your schedule; however, you’re in charge of that too when you work for yourself. Yes, you will have to grind harder, but the rewards are all yours, both profit and time.
Mindset #2: You can only maximize your income by doing what you love
Slaving away at a job you don’t like or even hate will block your ability to produce maximal results. You’re probably living on autopilot, waking and going to work knowing exactly how uninteresting and uninspiring your life will be that day and for all the rest of your working days as well.
This kind of life will leave you constantly feeling unhappy, bored, and continuously day-dreaming of a better life. This is probably the life Jay Z was living when he sang, “this can’t be life.” Perhaps it’s time you changed your career regardless of the size of the current paycheck.
You have the capacity to impact the world positively but to do that; you have to be prepared to adapt and change with life. Those changes bring the mixture of anxiety, sadness, fear, excitement, and happiness that makes life interesting. You should not allow the fear of failure or working-hard to prevent you from writing your name in the sands of time. Instead, you should embrace those ‘negative’ feelings by realizing that they will only contribute to your growth.
Leaving your comfort zone will challenge you. Now, the idea is not about leaving things at the slightest sign of bother. You should make an effort to enjoy what you do. However, if you can’t, you would do well to leave, or else you will not be capable of maximizing your wealth. Realize that it’s not the end of the world to close some doors. This is not about pride or incapacity. It is simply about not wasting your life and time on a career that won’t take you anywhere. If you can’t find a way to love your career and feel like taking on a new challenge, there’s no use holding back. You will put yourself up for a future filled with questions like “what would have been?”
The world is brimming with new ideas and opportunities, and if you do not find these two things, you may not be able to maximize your wealth. You need to be challenged to realize your true potential, and if you don’t put yourself in situations that continuously do that, you’ll never know. Through challenges, ideas are sparked that may lead to new opportunities and further challenges that, if capitalized on, will generate abundant wealth.
Another thing about doing what you love is that you will continue to learn new things as you grow in it. Learning is one of the things that prove that you’re alive. It produces the same feeling you get when you’re enjoying what you’re doing, so they go hand in hand. Like all humans, you are born curious because your mind wants new information, that when obtained, will help you grow and prosper.
Doors to new opportunities, experiences, and generation of assets open when you’re doing what you love; how? Information is key (pun intended), and when you’re doing what you love, you’d be more eager to learn about it, all while learning about yourself too. So with all the information learned, you get better and can offer more, which means you’ll earn more in-turn.
Therefore, I think it’s time you asked yourself, ‘what am I passionate about?’ What is my purpose? Discover your talents, strengths, and what drives you. Here’s a quote to get you started. “People who are not ready to learn, cannot be helped. Those determined to learn, cannot be stopped.”
Mindset #3: Realizing a 9–5 job will never make you wealthy
At this point I think you’ve got an idea of the fact that working a job cannot make you wealthy. You need to build multiple streams of income for yourself. It’s indisputable that more streams of income means more security. You cannot be all about your 9–5 job and want to own great wealth. The reason? Let me share that with you now.
Life as a “nine-to-fiver” is filled with pay-cuts and layoffs. On the other hand, life with multiple streams of income means if one of the proverbial eggs in the basket breaks, the others keep you going. By the time you throw the law of compounding interest into the mix, the growth of your wealth is unstoppable and limitless.
As I shared earlier, you need to find your passion, and when you do, you can offer a service to the world. This can be through offering a unique service or a must-have product. At the core you just have to be offering more value to see income in return.
For income diversification, you might be capable of building yourself a passive income stream that grows slowly over time. If you’re a savvy and creative person, you can definitely come up with a new product then promote it. You could start your thought process running wild by asking, what you wish you but isn’t currently available. At the core, whatever you offer needs to meet other peoples’ needs.
For example, maybe you have knowledge the world could use, and that knowledge could be transformed into a book. One quote says, “you’re better at something than 99 percent of individuals”. Hence, most if not all of the 99% of others would be the target market for this particular skills or trait you posses. The other 1% that are equally as good are most likely too lazy to write on it. So voila! There’s your opportunity. However, writing a book is just one example of the things you could do so task your mind and get things happening.
Mindset #4: Shifting from saving everything to investing everything
You have to understand that saving alone won’t grow your money and that investing is the best method to grow that wealth. Generally, people use investing and saving interchangeably; however, there’s a difference.
Saving has to do with setting money aside for future purposes or emergencies. It’s the money you’ll access quickly whenever you want or need it, without any risk. A lot of financial organizations provide people with various savings options. Meanwhile, investing is when you buy assets like real estate, mutual funds, bonds, and stocks with the expectation that they will generate wealth for you. Investments are made in a bid to secure long-term goals. Yes, it’s good to be patient with your money. However, you should know that dormant money will lose its value over time. Yes, no, thanks to mediocre interest rates and inflation, your hard-earned money is actually losing value.
The intelligent thing to do then is to invest your savings wisely, giving life to your money and enabling it to grow, which in turn grows your wealth. So, rather than dedicating all your money to ‘savings,’ push some of that cash towards ‘investing’. Once your emergency account contains an amount of money you’re comfortable with, you’ll be smart to put the rest to work by investing.
Now, you’re asking how it’s done. To invest successfully, you need to determine your investing goals. You need to ascertain when you want or need to achieve the goals as well as your level of comfort with the potential risks. Take note to ensure that the investments you choose match your tolerance level. This is important because you can’t fret when it comes to investments.
Above all else, if you want to ensure your financial growth, you need to have time for yourself and the passion to live your life full. By focusing on yourself, you’ll definitely develop these 4 mindsets!