Staying committed to your financial freedom journey is something not many people are willing to do over the long haul. There is a great podcast called The BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, and on this podcast the hosts always ask every guests the same four questions at the end of the show. One of the questions is this, ” What do you think sets apart successful investors from those who give up, fail, or never even get started?” When you take out the word “investor” this is a fundamental question that applies to everyone using any avenue to reach financial freedom. My answer to this question is twofold. People naturally fear failure as they think it will cause them to be viewed poorly by others and in turn result in them losing confidence in themselves. The other factor at play here is people’s general lack of discipline and commitment holds them back from reaching the great things they are more than capable of reaching. Since we already talked about failure at length in a previous post, I would like to jump into the commitment side of the equation here.
Commitment from day one
So many times, I have seen people try something for a short period of time and give it up shortly after because they failed to receive immediate results. This represents a greater issue with our society as a whole and how everyone expects to see the fruits of their labor directly after they complete some of their labor. To reach the top level of success, it doesn’t work like that. Delaying gratification plays a huge factor in reaching success because when you go into something from day one knowing you may not make money for a while, you’ll have the extra motivation to hustle and make ends meet while you wait for your time to shine.
Finding another source of motivation
Without money as a motivator, you will need to find something else to get you out of bed and continue trekking on your journey towards success. This is a big difference from the typical cycle of getting paid every two weeks from your labor from a 9-5 job. For me, freedom to do what I want when I want is a huge motivator and it is my big why for getting out of bed every morning to do what I do. I purposely put myself in situations where I am paid based on results rather than for just showing up so I don’t get comfortable making a certain amount of money for giving up a certain amount of my time to do something that means nothing to me. In order to find the commitment to reach your goals, you need to define your big why. There is not a one size fits all big why, so you’ll have to search within yourself to come up with why you want financial freedom so bad (if that is something you truly want). This thought process applies in order to commit to anything. You must have a big why to motivate you to keep going every day. Without a primary source of motivation, you may find it difficult if not impossible to stay committed to and achieve your goals.
using that motivation to fuel your actions
Once you have defined your big why, the most important next step is to outline a plan of action to get to your end goal. From what I have found, it is best to start at the end and work backwards from what you want to where you are now. This will help you fill in the gaps between now and your ultimate goal and make the road to get there much clearer to you because of your defined end goal. This can best be done by using the principles illustrated in the book Vivid Vision in which you write down whatever your business/life/anything else you are striving to achieve looks like, feels like, and acts like three years down the road. The goal is to get very specific and use the present tense to write as if you have achieved everything you’re envisioning already. This practice works as I have done it myself on more than one occasion and have seen tangible progress towards my three-year goal in a relatively short period of time. To be able to do this in the most efficient way possible, I recommend you read the book and use my old post on the Vivid Vision for reference to guide you on your journey.
Putting it all together
Once you have your big why and end goal in mind, you should be ready to commit to finding and piecing together the steps between now and three years from now at the end of your Vivid Vision. Each day you should have a purpose to keep doing what you’re doing because you see the bigger picture of where you are going if you stay committed to what you are doing. As you fill in some of the image of your Vivid Vision and see that tangible progress you have made between when you started and now, it will encourage you to stay motivated and become even more committed. People love to see progress and that all their hard work and effort is for something. This layout allows for that. At the end of the day, keeping yourself committed to your goals is one of the defining traits that separates the people who succeed from those who give up, fail, or never get started.