ARTICLE

The first and most critical step to successfully creating wealth!

Written by: Gary Wilde

© Copyright Gary Wilde 2010 - All rights reserved

26 July 2010

The first and most important step to successfully creating wealth is the first and most critical step in the process of achieving ANY goal in your life... You have to know EXACTLY what you are aiming to achieve!

Now this might sound like a no-brainer, but before you skip to the next thing on your to-do list, read the paragraphs to follow as they may hold one of the most important keys to your future success, financially or in any other area of your life... because if you've ever wondered why some of the results in your life do not match up to your wishes, there's a good chance that you got the first step wrong!

Before reading on, write down your answer to the following questions, or simply say them out loud; "What exactly do I want to achieve in my life?” and “What are my financial goals?”... do this now!

When I ask people, "What exactly do you want to achieve in your life?", some of the more common answers I get include; "I want to be happy”, “I want to be successful”, “I want to be wealthy”, "I want to be healthy", "I want lots of money", "I don't want to struggle anymore", "I don't want to be a failure" etc.

On the face of it, these appear to be perfectly reasonable and achievable aspirations, however each of these statements are in fact strong signals that the person has little to no idea of what they want! To confirm my suspicion, I follow with a question like; “What exactly do you mean by... happy... successful... wealthy... healthy... lots of money... not struggling... not being a failure...etc?” Most of the time this question is greeted with a long spell of silence, nervous laughter, more generalisations or a look of bewilderment that says, "Duh! Isn’t that obvious?”

No, it’s not obvious, because a generalisation such as, “I want to be wealthy” or a negative statement like, “I don't want to struggle” doesn't give you anything specific to aim for! When we don't have a clear target to hit, we either wonder around aimlessly hoping we are going to hit it by chance, or we simply do nothing!

Humans are actually very good at hitting well defined targets. The proof of this is evident in our day to day lives e.g. making a cup of coffee, dropping the kids off at school, paying the telephone account etc. Each of these are examples of clearly defined targets, which are instructions that our conscious minds give to our unconscious minds, which in turn ensures that we execute them accordingly. In these examples, if we had used a generalisation or negative statement as the instruction to our unconscious mind, the outcome would have been very different e.g. get something to drink, don't leave the kids at home, pay the bills... clearly there is another step in the process of thinking before we can know exactly what it is that we need to do!

The conscious mind is the goal-setter and the unconscious mind is the goal-getter. i.e. the conscious gives the instructions and the unconscious executes them. Think of the conscious mind as a passenger in a taxi and the unconscious mind as the taxi driver. Now imagine you're in London and wanted to go to Trafalgar Square. If you said to the taxi driver, "take me into town” or “don't take me to Piccadilly Circus”, what do you think your chances are of getting to Trafalgar Square in the shortest space of time... or at all? You're either going to spend the day touring London, or the taxi driver is just going to wait until you give him clearer instructions.

If you want to be wealthy, but don't have a clear image in your mind as to what being wealthy means to you, you're going to be wasting a lot of time and energy doing things that don't necessarily serve you in achieving your goal, or you may simply end up doing nothing. The other problem you will face, is that you'll have no way of determining whether the things you are doing are taking you closer to, or further from your goal... and you'll have no way of knowing when you’ve got there!

There is no generally accepted definition of what it means to be wealthy and many of the definitions out there don't provide people with a clear or specific target to aim for e.g. “The possession of an abundance of items of economic value” Wikipedia. That's like saying to the taxi driver, "Take me to a place where I can buy lots of things" when you're actually wanting to go shopping at Harrods.

The challenge therefore, is to formulate a generic definition that is not only clear and measurable, but one that also accommodates the aspirations and preferences unique to each of us. To this end, I define “being wealthy” as follows:

A person is financially wealthy when their income from passive sources, exceeds the cost of their chosen lifestyle and can sustain this lifestyle for the rest of their lives. I.e. Someone that can live the lifestyle of their choice, for the rest of their lives, without ever having to work another day in their lives to afford it.

If you want to achieve a state of wealth in terms of this definition, all you need to do in order to have a clear target to aim for, is clearly define [in detail] the lifestyle you wish to live for the rest of your life. Then, remind yourself every day, exactly what it is that you are striving for and ensure that whatever it is you're doing with your time, is taking you towards that goal... if it isn't, then it's time to do something else that will!

Until next time, whatever it is you wish to achieve in your life, or your day for that matter, make sure you've given yourself a clear target to aim for... because the odds of you hitting it, will swing strongly in your favour!

To your Wilde Success!

Gary Wilde