Principles of Financial Success You Must Know (Part 1)
Financial success simply means the achievement of the financial status you have dreamt of. What has been your dream? Is it to become a billionaire, a millionaire or simply to be able to afford three square meals daily? Whatever dream you have, you should know that they are realizable if you set out to pursue them diligently and vigorously.
Some people erroneously believe that the only way to succeed in life is to work hard, harder and harder. It is actually good to work hard because success does not come on a platter of gold. But it takes more than just hard work alone to succeed in your business or financial life.
If your desire is to succeed after reading this article and after participating in my training course, then you have to be prepared to observe the following principles:
1. Spend less than you earn: In order to get financial liberty one needs to spend less than one earns. You must not consume everything you earn at the end of each month. You must have something left from your salary or business profits: don’t spend everything without anything to save for the future. It is the one that you have left at the end of your expenses that contributes to make you rich, not what you spent. Your expenses actually make you poorer and make someone else richer. So when next you are tempted to spend the whole of your monthly salary you should resist the temptation.
2. Pay yourself first: It is strange to so many people that they should first pay themselves before making any expenses from their monthly income. When you receive your salary/wage for instance, you have to remove your tithe first; then pay yourself certain percentage (say 5-10%) of your income before spending the rest on whatever you desire.
3. Plan for uncertainty: Always envisage problems and think of a way of overcoming such problems should they arise in the future. Think of you, your wife or your child falling sick suddenly. Think of you being presented with an opportunity to buy a valuable property at a very cheap price. Imagine a company you have been waiting to invest in suddenly presenting you with the opportunity to buy its stock. You must have some money kept in a separate account to take care of such situations. Make sure to deposit some amounts into such account periodically.
4. Be financially literate: Business success requires some level of financial training. For you to win a gold medal in athletics you need physical training; in order to succeed in farming you need basic training in farming or agricultural science. To be a successful engineer you need to attend a university, polytechnic or a technical college. In the same vein, business and financial management require basic training for one to do well. You should not jump into a business where you have no basic or elementary knowledge otherwise you will loose your hard-earned income.
5. Set long term goals: You need to set long-term goals and work towards achieving them. You must define where you wish to be in the next 1, 5, 10, 15 or 20 years. Knowing where you want to be would propel you into working out the modalities for getting there. If possible, write down your goals and keep them close to where you can see them often. Reading them often would keep reminding you that you have unfinished task that needs to be accomplished.