Why do you need good financial habits in your personal and professional lives? How can you prove to your boss that you’re worthy of a promotion?
There are specific habits that lead to success in different areas of your life. In particular, Brian Tracy has stellar advice for financial success, including entrepreneurial habits and proving your worth as an employee.
Continue reading to learn how to embrace three good financial habits.
1. Reaching Financial Independence
Brian Tracy argues that the first good financial habit is to become financially independent. To achieve this, you must cultivate drive and discipline. Lasting wealth is not built overnight—it requires patience, consistency, and living below your means. Why is this important for you? Financial independence frees you from the stresses of living paycheck-to-paycheck and provides security for your future.
To start, create a habit of being frugal and avoiding extravagant purchases. This allows you to live within your means and direct money toward wealth-building activities like saving and investing. To put this into practice, carefully analyze each potential purchase: Ask yourself if it’s truly something you need, or just a passing want. Adopt a modest lifestyle focused on long-term financial goals over short-term indulgences.
Tracy says another habit you should adopt is automatically saving 10% of your income. When you save automatically, you never have to factor that portion of your income into your lifestyle, so you learn to live within the other 90%. You can think of it as money you’re paying to a future you. Put this into action by setting up automatic transfers from your checking account into a dedicated savings account each payday. Treat this like another monthly bill you must pay.
If 10% of your current income feels like too much, consider saving 50% of any future income increases you receive. This gradually increases your savings rate without disrupting your current lifestyle—it’s easier psychologically to devote money you don’t have yet to savings, instead of taking a portion of what you already use. Implement this by calculating 50% of any raises or windfalls and immediately directing that amount into savings or investments.
Tracy adds that carefully considering your investment decisions is also paramount; good investments will grow your wealth year after year, but poor investments can quickly deplete it instead. Thoroughly research potential investments and consult successful investors for advice before committing money.
Finally, having proper insurance coverage is an additional expense, but a crucial one. Insurance safeguards your finances against catastrophic events that could otherwise wipe out your savings. Therefore, Tracy recommends protecting yourself and your family by obtaining appropriate insurance policies for your home, health, vehicles, and any other major assets or liabilities you have.
2. Achieving Success as an Entrepreneur: Focus on the Customer
Good financial habits are crucial, but of course you need to have income before they’ll do you any good. One route to a steady income is to become an entrepreneur by starting your own business. If this is your preferred method, it’s important to first understand what makes a business successful: satisfying and retaining customers, and continuous improvement.
As a business owner or entrepreneur, Tracy says you must constantly prioritize your customers’ needs. Thus, every decision you make should be evaluated through the lens of how it will impact the customer experience.
However, it’s not enough to just offer a great customer experience. Tracy also says you must convince people that your products or services provide more value than what your competitors can offer—this could mean higher quality, lower prices, or both. Doing so requires constantly looking for ways to improve your products or services and enhance your marketing strategies.
Therefore, always be on the lookout for opportunities to innovate, refine your approach, and communicate your unique selling proposition more effectively. Continuous improvement is essential to stay ahead of the competition and meet evolving customer needs.
3. Achieving Success as an Employee
Tracy writes that entrepreneurship isn’t a path that suits everyone, and he asserts that you can also achieve financial success and fulfillment by becoming the best employee you can be. If starting a business isn’t for you, instead focus your efforts on finding a job that aligns with your interests and strengths, and on excelling in that role.
The path to high earnings and a sense of fulfillment starts with finding work that you’re both skilled at and passionate about. Therefore, it’s important to take time for self-reflection, keep trying new things, and focus on activities that make you feel energized. Once you’ve figured out what you love to do, you can look for a job that lets you turn that passion into profit.
The author says that if you take this route, you should make a concerted effort to be a model employee: someone who’s hardworking, helpful, and well-liked. Be intentional about working diligently, volunteering for tasks, building positive relationships with colleagues, and consistently striving to provide value to your organization. If your job is something that you’re passionate about and good at, this should all come naturally to you.
| Ikigai: Your Reason for Living What Tracy describes here closely resembles the Japanese concept of ikigai, which roughly means reason for being. If you find your ikigai, you’ll probably also have found a job role that you can be successful in.Your ikigai combines four elements: 1. Passion: what you love to do 2. Talent: what you’re good at 3. Purpose: what you believe the world needs 4. Profit: what people will pay you to doOne way to start looking for your ikigai is to make separate lists of activities for each of those four elements, then look for what those lists have in common. Anything that appears on all four lists is a strong candidate for your ikigai. |
