6 Common Traits of Financial Success (Part I)

Do you have someone special in your life that you’d like to give a financial planning shout out to? No, I’m not talking about someone you think could seriously use some financial planning help to get their money train back on the right tracks. I’m talking about a shout out to someone that helped shape your financial future in a positive way. It could be your parents, a friend, a teacher, or maybe even that special financial counselor or planner that was there for you when you needed some guidance.

In a perfect world, we would all have that special role model to help shape smart financial decision making at an early age. Unfortunately, there are enough bad examples out there to fill up books on what not to do with your money.  That’s why I think it’s important to take some time to examine the characteristics of people that have their financial lives in order.

An analysis of the personality traits of millionaires and financially healthy individuals is more than relevant during the financial planning process.  It is required.  In order to achieve financial freedom, it helps to be able to identify some of the most common characteristics of people who have already accomplished success.  I also believe that it’s important to strive to possess as many of these qualities as possible no matter what your financial goals or current status may be.

Purpose

“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”  – Robert Byrne

“Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”  – Helen Keller

Living a meaningful life starts with a sense of purpose. Successful and happy people have usually spent time considering their unique purpose in life and have taken steps to fulfill that purpose.  Successful people know exactly where they are going and why they want to get there.  They have a clear personal vision to guide them in their personal lives, their family lives, and their careers.  Purpose provides the energy and focus to help us achieve life planning goals.

Creativity

“The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”  – Alan Alda

“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.”  – Henry David Thoreau

We all have an innate sense to create in our lives. Successful people have learned to tap into their creative spark and do so in a way that enriches their lives and the world around them.  They are constantly questioning the crowd and traditional expectations.  They create their own unique definitions of success and rarely subject themselves to a herd mentality.

For many, this could include doing things differently from a financial perspective.  Saving for emergencies rather than spending to keep up with others takes some imagination.  Creative budgeting and finding ways to entertain on a limited budget are other examples of financial creativity.

Other creative endeavors help successful people charge their cognitive batteries and inspire goal driven accomplishments.  Creativity requires independent thinking.  It also helps us tap into our ability to understand the difference between needs and desires through independent thinking and self-awareness.  A creative mind helps prevent us from getting stuck in life.  It helps us move forward and find new meaning and importance in our daily struggles.

Courage

“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”  – A.A. Milne

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear” – Mark Twain

Change requires personal sacrifice.  To live like nobody else with a sense of financial freedom generally requires the courage to take risks and live like nobody else until you reach your goals. Often times, we find that successful people are risk-takers but more importantly, they are courageous. They tap into the courage that lives deep inside them and use it to break ground, try new things and put themselves out in front.  When making a commitment to learn new strategies and techniques you are taking risks.

It takes courage to admit failure and pick oneself off the ground and try again at anything in life.  Courage is also needed to change one’s approach to managing personal finances.  Some of the most successful people in this world have failed time and time again only to get up again and display the courage needed to accept the next challenge in life.

Willingness to Act

“Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible; and as the test of belief is willingness to act, one may say that faith is the readiness to act in a cause the prosperous issue of which is not certified to us in advance.”  – William James

Knowing and doing are two separate things.  The key ingredients of financial wellness include three parts behavioral change and one part knowledge and expertise.  Knowing what to do during the financial planning process is important.  Having the willingness to act on this knowledge is more important.

Successful people are willing to dig in, do the work and learn new things. They are simply willing to do whatever it takes to create the life they want.  Creating an action plan and following through with those behaviors is another essential aspect of the financial planning process.  Be willing to take the steps needed to improve your financial life.

Commitment

“There is a difference between interest and commitment. When you are interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permits. When you are committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.” Author Unknown

“The best way out is always through.”  – Robert Frost

Committed people do more than just have the willingness to take action.  They keep taking action over and over again. As the old saying goes, anything worth having in life does not come easily.  A true sense of financial wellness is worth the hard work and effort.  Freedom to live a financially secure life awaits those who are committed to doing everything it takes to succeed.

Integrity

Integrity is doing the right thing, even if nobody is watching.”  – Author Unknown

Successful people never sacrifice their integrity and are always honest with themselves and others.  If you behave with a high degree of personal integrity, you have a greater likelihood of financial success.  Most importantly, you will live a life of strong resolve and consistency.  There are many wealthy individuals in this country who have amassed large sums of wealth through corruption and deception.  The acquisition of wealth without integrity is not a sign of success.  True financial success requires high standards of integrity through good and bad times.

As you read through this list of traits hopefully you identified that you possess many of these same qualities.  If there are a few areas that are in need of improvement, write them down and make a list of ways that you would like to improve.  Keep in mind that you are not expected to currently possess all of these traits.  However, the closer that you can get to 100% of these traits the easier your financial life planning journey may be.  Next week, we’ll take a look at six more important factors of financial success.

 

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