According to the the Credit Suisse’s 2018 Global Wealth Report, if you earn an income of more than $32,400 a year, you are amongst the top 1% of the world’s wealth. Let that sink in for a minute. Do you feel anymore rich now? Perhaps as your hovering over your stack of bills, you’re not feeling so rich. Let me show you how you can.
I want you to imagine something with me. Imagine your life, but with unlimited funds. If money was no longer an issue for you and you could focus on your passions, what would life look like? We often hear the old “win the lottery” example so you can let that play out in your head if that makes it easier.
Perhaps you would travel the world, volunteer or pursue your passion.
Got your grand plans? I can take a wild guess that your life’s plan fantasy doesn’t even touch on money in the bank. Meaning; if today, someone dropped 1 million in your bank but wouldn’t let you use it, you wouldn’t be in any different situation than you are right now. It’s not the money that you have, it’s how you spend it that can bring you fulfillment.
Great, now that we’ve established that money doesn’t cure all and certainly doesn’t provide direct happiness, let’s discuss how you can change your mindset to enjoy your life, bring extra income in and find the wealth you are looking for.
Your Job
According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, one must achieve the basics of human needs in order to progress further in our advancement. This theory suggests that a society as a whole cannot progress without it’s participants need’s being met.
What relation does this have to your job? Well, in society today, we all depend on funding to be able to provide basic living necessities. If your current job provides the funding necessary for you to be able to have your basics needs met, than you have already fulfilled this aspect of the pyramid. So you’re good to go!
If not, than you have some work to do. Priority number 1 should include finding a job that is able to finance you to be able to have your basic needs met.
If you have a job that does provide you the ability to provide the basics for yourself, than you need to find some kind of fulfillment in it. Have you often found yourself on the never-ending loops of searching for the next best job? I can assure you, you’ll never find it. No matter how much you hate your current job, most of us don’t get to have our dream jobs. Instead of resenting every job you ever are blessed enough to obtain, find peace with it. Find something about your job that you can enjoy. Then find your why. Find the true reason you come to work every day, it can’t just be to make money. For example, my “why” is to provide for my family and the family’s of my employees. As such, I find fulfillment in helping my employee’s advance their careers and providing thoroughly for my family’s needs. It’s important to me, it rules my every day.
Your dream possessions
When people first hit the lottery, many resort to buying the most beautiful possessions. A Ferrari, a big spacious home, a yacht, etc. Unless your dream involves sailing the world, or providing for your very large family, these possessions are unnecessary and therefore will not allow you to find true happiness in wealth.
Having things doesn’t make you any happier than the moment you buy them. Do a little experiment, the next time you are shopping at Target and you make all of those impulse purchases, load them all up into the trunk of your car. Now drive yourself home and without looking, try and remember every impulse you’ve just purchased. If you can’t remember them all, it’s unlikely they’ve contributed to your life in any positive way.
If you’re going to plan out a way to live your wealthy dreams, you’re going to need to learn to prioritize what is necessary and what is unnecessary. Pay for the things you need and for the best price you can.
If fine dining is something that you would like to implement into your life more often, avoid eating fast food. Save that money for a beautiful dinner date with your loved one. Drink fine wine and eat delicious food, I can guarantee you that, that dinner will provide more fulfillment and provide you great memories more-so than any drive thru food can.
The bottom line is, the less you spend on frivolous items, the more you can spend on life-changing moments with those you love. So clip the coupons, utilize those sales, skip the impulse buys and spend your money enjoying life rather than enjoying things.
Fuel your Mind
I have a long commute every day to work. I could choose to spend that commute jamming to my favorite music, listening to talk radio or do something that will actually contribute positively to my life. That precious time sitting in the car could be your time to stimulate your mind.
I often listen to audio books on my way to and from work. I do appreciate self-help books, they can change your mentality on this wonderful life we live. They can provide inspiration and perspective. I also enjoy listening to how-to books for how to create passive income.
It doesn’t matter which audio book you choose as long as it stimulates your mind. If you’ve wanted to learn French, there’s an audio book for that. If your passion involves gardening, there’s a book for that, if you want/need to make passive income on the side, there’s tons of books for that.
I would if I had time
Your time is precious, so is mine. I’m currently spending time writing this, unaware if anyone will ever actually read it. I work full time, I’m a mother and a wife. My time is stretched thin.
Find ways to make time to enjoy this life you live. Hire the house-keeper, get your groceries delivered, hire out some of the tasks in your day-to-day life that are taking up your precious time. Now you might be thinking, I’m too broke for that. You just said not to spend frivolously. I can assure you, this is not frivolous spending, if I have to cut back on certain unnecessary things in my life so I can afford to have my house cleaned, I will. You should to. You can spend that time meaningfully. Pursuing a passion, spending time with your family or even working on creating passive income.
Set aside your precious PTO to do something magnificent. Take your kids on a dream vacation, visit a country you’ve always wanted to see, go on an epic hiking adventure. If you’re cutting back on frivolous expenses, you will have funding for that.
Making Passive Income
Remember that this income will not make you happy. It can merely bring you closer to retirement, fund an adventure, get you out of debt or put some cushion in that dry savings account. The results of generating passive income can bring you happiness.
I’m not an expert on passive income, I would highly suggest reading or listening to audio books on the subject. I’ve listened to the books below on my commute to work and it’s provided me a great deal of inspiration to help boost my passive income.
A good passive income source shouldn’t take you enormous amounts of time but should generate income easily and quickly. They ideally have low start up costs, if any. For some, these passive income sources end up being their primary source of income and allow them to quit their jobs and pursue their heart’s desires.
Drop-Shipping
Essentially, you connect with manufactures and companies through a website like Shopify. You create a website to market their products and many companies will drop-ship the products straight to the customer. Meaning you don’t even have to touch the products.
Amazon FBA
This is Amazon’s fulfillment program. Essentially, you purchase products, wholesale or even just products you find for a good deal. You ship them to Amazon’s warehouse and they will sell them for you. They handle the customer service, the returns, everything. You just collect profits.
Affiliate Income
There are many websites you can choose from to affiliate for. Essentially, you can get paid for advertising products, services and websites. Some are pay-per-click and some are pay-per-purchase. This can be a “set it and forget it” tactic. Create a website that draws attention and inset affiliate links. Below are a few companies that can help you get going.
Network Marketing
This isn’t truly passive but there are so many network marketing companies to choose from. It’s a lot like opening a little franchise. I work with Usborne books and I love it. I don’t spend an enormous amount of time on it and I get to enjoy discounted books for my daughter. You can check it out here!
You can check out more passive income ideas with these books I highly recommend. You can click on any of the images to check them out.
The bottom line…
In order to change your life and become more “rich,” you’ll need to follow the following steps
- Change your attitude: stop wallowing in self-pity and feel grateful for the life you are living. If you’re unsatisfied with some aspects of it, that’s ok. Just work towards improving them.
- Change your spending habits: Buy what you need, when you actually need it. Save that money that you would have spent on another blouse you don’t need and put it towards a dream of yours.
- Get a side-hustle: Whether it’s passive income or a way to monetize a passion you already have, get moving on making it work for you!
- Spend your free time fueling that beautiful mind: Avoid your Facebook feed and focus on reading or listening to books written by individuals that possess a skill that you wish to learn.
- Hire services that will save you time: Ask yourself what tasks take the most time away from doing the things you love and find a way to task that to someone else.
- Have faith that your life can be better: In your quest of self-improvement, find ways to reinforce the reasons that you’re spending your time working on your side hustle, or putting that gorgeous purse back on the shelf. Let your “why” consume your thoughts.
- Don’t let the dollar consume you: I’ll say it again, because I can’t say it enough. Money will bring you no happiness, wealth will bring you no happiness. You can only experience the happiness that everyone seeks when they envision wealth by finding out what truly fulfills you. What are you doing when you feel your glass is the fullest? Is it drinking a glass of wine in a beautiful restaurant near the ocean? Is it hiking up a mountain and taking gorgeous pictures? Is it that little sparkle in your child’s eye because they’ve seen something amazing they’ve never seen before?
Whatever it is, go get it. The universe wants you to have it.
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