Habits, attitudes, behaviours are so important as they make up our actions and decisions or even indecisions and aid/prevent you from wealth building. There are many principles of wealth building. One principle is the ability to generate and increase your income. However, the ability to keep most of it and use it to generate more wealth is far more important. These 8 attitudes make it more difficult to follow these wealth building principles.
Table of Contents
1. being a free spirit
This one is for “go with the flow” people. “I am a free spirit “ sounds like a cool thing to say, right? I feel it’s one of those sentences I made as a teenager to sound cool without knowing what it actually meant. But seriously! Some people are just free spirits. They go where the wind blows, not where their wallets blow.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. As someone who is the opposite of a free spirit, I sometimes feel envious of people who just make decisions without analysing and dissecting. There are good aspects of being free-spirited so I am not knocking free spirits down.
However, if being a free spirit extends to impulsive/compulsive spending, then it’s time to reign this in. I listen to Dave Ramsey a lot on youtube and it’s interesting when people with huge amounts of debt call in and say things like…I’m a free spirit.
I think everyone needs to become less free-spirited as they grow and take on responsibility. One of the Joys of adulthood is not doing things based on impulse. I definitely cannot up and travel or do some things impulsively now with a husband and children. So if you find that you are dissatisfied with the constraints that a budget, job or responsibility imposes on your free spirit, have no fear! We are all in this together. It’s just called life!
The problem arises when your impulsiveness is setting you back financially or making it difficult to achieve your goals. You only live once is true but you can live purposefully and have fun without breaking the bank or impedding your chance of success.
2. Not planning and organising
Not everyone is naturally inclined to be organised. That is why event planning, executive assistants and so on are thriving professions. But having basic planning and organising skills is essential for financial success and wealth building. I am often asked how I manage to juggle or get so organise with all the things I do and my response is that I have learned to plan ahead as much as possible.
Knowing that something doesn’t come naturally to you helps you consciously build capabilities in that area. I don’t really think I enjoy planning but I know it is essential for me to do so. The honest truth is that it gives me a sense of control which can have its issues so balance and allowing flexibility is still important. However, planning and organising saves you a lot of time and money too.
Budgeting, regular checkups, ensuring you are still getting the right deals for your utilities/services, doing a meal plan, automating your savings and investments and regular checkups are all good planning/organising habits that ensures financial success.
Planning can help free up your time to take on a side Hustle, read more books, acquire new skills with training and save you money to invest so you can buy back your time later on and not work into oblivion! or at least only keep working because you want to.
If you have a lot of responsibilities and have a lot to juggle then irrespective of your personality type you need to learn to plan and schedule.
Finally, most people want to commit time to things that matter. Family, Exercise, relationships, work, fun and lots more. Procrastination is such a terrible thing! It is indeed the thief of time. The cure for procrastination is to do what can be done instantly and schedule everything with some accountability built-in where possible. So get planning and organising!
Action is the foundational key to all success.
Pablo Picasso
3. Lack of vision
Having the ability to make things up as you go along has its positives. Planning every single minute of your day and life has its negatives. It is all about balance. However, having a focus is essential for anyone that wants to be successful in anything. My best analogy for this is that if you want to go somewhere and you don’t have a specific destination in mind then you can end up anywhere. Some people navigate life like that.
If you have a growing dissatisfaction about some aspects of your life or a desire for certain things, try to articulate them and have a proper plan to address them. Paint a picture of what you want your life to be. That is the vision or the dream. You can call it what sits with you. Now write it somewhere and start to plot your journey to get there.
As you are now certain of the destination, getting there should be easier. Easy doesn’t mean a walk in the park but purpose ignites you and motivates you. Knowing where you are headed will give you resilience when things are tough and the journey will be done with more ease.
To achieve financial success, you first have to define what this means for you. A lack of vision in itself is the definition of failure or the outlet for defining your success with other peoples measure. A vision is an important foundation for wealth building.
A very good book to help with writing your life’s mission and setting the right foundation for success is the 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey. You can check out my book review here.
4. Love learning
I am not saying go and get degrees, but devour personal finance books, blogs, youtube videos. There are a plethora of resources out there. If you want to change your finances and start building wealth, learn from people who have done it.
Self-development is key. One of the things I have done is to ensure that I am intentional about learning. I started a book club and I have been trying to be consistent with my reading goals. There are a few months when I didn’t complete a book but read most of it. Putting it out there and sharing it with even a few people provides that accountability and gives me an extra push.
I also allocate the majority of the time I spend on social media learning. I concluded a long time ago that a major part of social media was vanity and chose not to indulge in most of it. This is a huge challenge as it’s important as a content creator to be on social media and be relatable.
Despite the ills of social media, there is a lot that can be learnt there. If you find you spend a large amount of time on social media, then curate your feeds by following accounts of people you can learn from. I try to avoid looking at what people are wearing, eating or driving and focus on the lessons and inspiration.
The message is however you choose to do so, ensure you are actively developing your knowledge. If you want to be successful and build wealth, learn from successful people by finding a community of learners.
5. Not embracing Change
You have heard that change is inevitable right. But we are all uncomfortable with change. It’s a strange thing with the pandemic. It seemed lockdown threw us into a state. Now some are struggling to come out of that state. I certainly am one of the people wanting to carry on working from home. Change can be a good thing and a difficult thing to experience.
Obviously, change that is forced upon us by tragedy is difficult. But to achieve your goals you need learn to ask what needs to change. Whether it’s a habit, your spending or your job. Remember the saying, “doing the same thing and expecting a different result is madness”.
Don’t just wait somewhere hoping money or success will appear. Wealth building has the word building in it. It doesn’t happen overnight. Sometimes you try something and it doesn’t work, try again. It’s always a good thing to prove your ideas if possible. Test it if you can do so before committing a huge capital outlay and embrace the adventure and change. What I want people to say of me is that if something doesn’t happen, it’s not for want of trying.
6. Negative mindset
This goes without saying. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. You have to absolutely believe that you can be successful, that you can make it. That wealth building is not a preserve of a few.
There are self-made millionaires out there who faced tremendous adversity in their journey to wealth. Stop thinking you can never make it or succeed. Can you picture yourself as wealthy and successful?
Sometimes we don’t realise we have limiting beliefs. I too have struggled with the thought of having copious amounts of wealth. My thoughts range from thinking you attract attention and loose anonymity if you have copious amounts of wealth to the fact that it takes an enormous amount of work first to obtain the wealth and maintain it.
I still have some of these feelings and I am working through them. However, I absolutely believe that I am deserving of wealth and that if I have it, it will empower me to help people and solve problems.
Your thoughts about wealth building and success are important. Do you harbour a lot of negative thoughts and limiting beliefs around wealth? Start changing them. Work through your issues with someone if possible.
7 Lack of discipline- Physical and mental
It takes discipline to follow your plan, to prioritise the important things, to put in the work, to dedicate time to learning, to stay consistent, to plan, to figure out your why and to stick to it when things are not working.
It’s not just the physical discipline to work hard, mental discipline is also important as it is so easy to make excuses and give up. There are days I wake up to thoughts like “what’s the point of this”, “why bother”, so I experience the roller coasters as well as any one. But I often have to garner some mental strenght to pull through.
Knowing your why is very helpful in staying discipline. It is also important to understand the purpose of your work or business, whether in bringing you a paycheck or fulfilling your life’s purpose. A good value system of hardwork and commitment will help in keeping you grounded.
Adopting a high level of self-discipline in life, whether in sticking to a diet, an exercise regime or laying the groundwork for a business or side hustle, starts from the mind. So invest in your mental health, the right mindsets and a good process of self-evaluation and growth and this will translate to physical discipline.
Successful people and wealth builders are highly disciplined and focused. There are ways in which a good support system can motivate and encourage, but self discipline is a personal trait. Ask yourself the question, how disciplined are you (or am I)?
8. Caring too much about what people think
Finally, caring too much about what people think and living your life based on other peoples opinions or reccomendations is a dangerous place to be. Are you easily swayed with no mind of your own or convictions? Leaders, wealthy and successful people have high convictions about their dreams and visions. It’s great to have validation and good counsel but you should be careful where it’s coming from.
DO NOT! care about what random people think, well to a point. Sometimes there’s truth in criticism so self-awareness is important. But when pressure from other people starts making you live above your means or preventing you from taking action then there is a problem.
Watch who you share your business ideas with. People close to you may not be convinced or believe in your ideas. And, if you are expecting family and friends to be extremely passionate about your ideas before starting you might be waiting a long time. What you need is supportive people. Over time, if you sell your vision to them, their passion will grow too.
If you have friends that ridicule you when you are on a budget and call you stingy and encourage you to go into debt, then it might be time to part ways. This is because it will get to you at some point. You will occasionally splurge just because you will wonder why you are depriving yourself while so and so is living large.
I am a strong-willed person who is rarely impressed by things, but constantly being around certain people will wear my resolve thin. That being said, wealth building shouldn’t be a lonely road, the great thing about our world today is that even if you don’t find likeminded people in close proximity you will easily find them in communities online.
I hope you can relate to some of the 8 behaviours above. Let me know which one resonated with you the most and what you will add to the list in the comments section below.