3 Mistakes To Avoid When Preparing Yourself For A Better Financial Future

The main reason most people don’t get what they want in life is a lack of clarity about what they really want.

Trial and error is a very expensive way to learn life’s lessons and it helps to learn from others’ experiences as you chart your course to your desired destination.

Without specific goals and objectives, it is extremely difficult to achieve any meaningful results. You can’t measure your progress or succeed at anything when playing blind archery.

In this article, we will look at three mistakes you need to avoid when preparing yourself for a better financial future.

1.  Failing to increase your earning ability

One of the concepts that Stephen Covey pointed out in his bestseller ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ was the distinction between production and production capability. The analogy he gave was that of the goose that laid the golden eggs.

Most people focus on increasing the production (golden eggs) without paying attention to the production capability (feeding the goose that lays them and taking good care of it).

Until you start investing in your personal development with the intention of acquiring new practical skills or enhancing your existing ones, it will be very difficult for you to increase your earning ability in the long-term.

2.  Believing it’s too late for you to start over

Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich discovered, from the analysis of over 25,000 people, that men who succeed in an outstanding way, seldom do so before the age of forty, and more often they do not strike their real pace until they are well beyond the age of fifty.

This proves it is never too late to make changes in your personal or professional life, changes that can help you take back control over your life rather than being forced to cut back and simplify your lifestyle in your old age due to financial pressures.

One way of inspiring yourself to turn your dreams into achievements is to take a close look at the alternative to doing nothing. Put yourself on the spot by saying “I have to achieve this goal or else…”.

If the alternative doesn’t scare you, you won’t be motivated enough to carry out your task of implementing the activities that will get you closer to your goals, however hard you try.

3.  Having unrealistic expectations about retirement

Retirement has long been thought of as the time to indulge your desires.

The trouble with a lifetime of employment is that it makes you dependent on a single source of income, making it difficult to plan for your future while living and enjoying the present.

For a good number of retired employees, the two major obstacles to this truth are worries over their health and their finances.

Strange enough, what scares most employees on top of the sudden loss of the benefits that come along with the high-salaried position they have to retire from, is the reduced income during retirement.

For instance, a monthly pension of $5,000 could be considered comfortable by some people, given they do not have to work anymore to earn that money every month.

However, if that same individual receiving this pension retired from a job that was paying $35,000 a month with benefits such as paid holidays, club memberships and a company vehicle, this abrupt change in lifestyle can have a significant impact on the retiree’s self-esteem.

For more insights on how to prepare yourself for a better financial future, click here to watch this FREE video, and discover proven strategies you can use to live the life of your dreams before you are too old to enjoy it.