Eight Self-Defeating Behaviors Preventing You From Becoming The Millionaire You Say You Want To Be.... And What To Do About Them

Why? Because they speak about this blessed condition as a matter of hope and not certainty. They are redolent of wistfulness and implausibility, treating this achievement as unlikely, if desireable, not absolutely sure. Such people, of course, would be only too happy to have the lottery rain riches on them... but as for getting it themselves, why that is just too much bother, and frankly a vision they really don't have for themselves, whatever they may say at cocktail parties. If this is you, go back for your third martini; you're probably beyond help. This article is for people who want to do more than talk about being a millionaire between canapes. In my ongoing research into what it takes to achieve millionaire status, I have identified 8 significant self- defeating behaviors that must be overcome. If you can identify them and overcome them, your chances of becoming a millionaire, the first step to truly significant wealth, are vastly improved. If you cannot, you'd better hope a maiden aunt leaves you her fortune... or that, while in couch potato mode, you see your lottery number on the t.v. screen.

Otherwise, being a millionaire just isn't in your future.

#1 You Haven't Set Becoming A Millionaire As Your Goal

Many report that before they achieved millionaire status, this certainty of impending wealth and status made them figures of fun to classmates, relatives and disbelieving friends. In weaker moments, the scarcasm, ridicule and lack of confidence of these people, frustrated and disappointed the future millionaires. But they always were able to get back on course... either because of their own inner certainty... or, in rarer instances, because a mentor intervened to assist them. One thing is certain, however: they never allowed the undermining, mediocre, entirely unhelpful atittudes of their "friends" to sabotage their own belief in themselves, a belief which is and continues to be a sine qua non of achieving millionaire status.

#2 You Haven't Set A Time By Which You Will Be A Millionaire

This date is an essential part of the mathematical formula you must create to become a millionaire. Once you have set this date, you know precisely how much time there is before you reach it... and precisely what must be done in the intervening period. You now have the essential clarity that you must have to reach your objective. You know just what you are trying to achieve... and just when you are trying to achieve it. Given that this is your priority, everything else, by definition, becomes less significant accordingly.

#3 You Don't Know How Much You Have To Make Every Single Day To Reach Your Objective

Thus, say you were age 30 and wanted to be a millionaire by age 40. And say, for the sake of argument, that you hadn't a penny to your name today. Fair enough. Between your 30th and 40th birthdays, there are 3650 days of which about 3030 are business days; (this doesn't include either Sundays or 10 holidays a year). This means, to become a millionaire by age 40 you must increase your net worth by $330.03 per day, every day. In the beginning, this increase must come exclusively through earned income, you having no other assets. By the end of the decade, a certain part of it will come through your various investments.

Once you have arrived at this goal, you need to post it prominently. You need to see it every single day and arrange all the activities of your life to achieve it. Otherwise, you either:

• don't really want to achieve the objective (and are thus a flatworm), or
• have set yourself a too ambitious objective, thereby ensuring failure and a tarnished self image.

#4 You Don't Have Daily Sales Quotas And The Necessary Marketing Plans For Your Products And Services That Will Net You The Amount Of Capital You Need To Reach Your Objective

If you're like most would-be millionaires, you don't. How, then, can you possibly expect to achieve your objective? The achievement of millionaire status involves the creation of an exact mathematical formula and arranging your life to achieve it. There's no mystery to this; instead, there's the grace, simplicity and certainty provided by mathematics. Thus, if you must net $330.03 per business day, you must:

• figure out precisely how much you need to gross daily. This involves determining how many of your products and services you need to sell to both gross and net the right amount, and
• develop a marketing plan that ensures you reach the right number of prospects so that you can gross the necessary amount.

What's important, however, is that you have your strategy down pat before you engage in any of the tactics of product and service selling. That is, you must not only know what you need to net each day but must have a clear idea of precisely what activities are the most likely to get you there... and whether what you're doing now is sufficient. Say you're a consultant currently selling your time alone and say that you currently make about $30,000 a year. Right now, given your expenses, etc., there's no way you can invest $330.03 per day. This means that part of your marketing plan must involve things like:

• enhancing your perceived value as a problem-solver so that you can raise your hourly and daily fee;
• spinning off problem-solving products like audio cassettes, Special Reports, booklets and books so that you can tap into new markets and develop so-called "passive" income sources, and
• diversifying your problem-solving skills to tap into new, more lucrative markets.

This is fair enough... if you mean it and don't simply engage in the kind of self-defeating "put off until tomorrow" behavior that so many would-be millionaires fall victim to. I know many people who say that in five or ten years they'll be reaping the benefit of their current self- improvement work... but I don't believe it. Too often, it's just too easy to say you'll make the necessary sacrifices tomorrow (and investing is always a sacrifice of some current pleasure), when you don't have the personal habits today that are a necessary prerequisite for success. That's why I think it better to set a longer, more realistic investment time-frame for the achievement of millionaire status and to both make and invest what you can right from the very beginning.

#5 You Haven't Mastered Your Craft So You Can Make The Money You Need

Thus, self-making millionaires are necessarily studious creatures... they study their craft, perfecting it, seeking to understand precisely how things work... and precisely how money can be made. They are not afraid of seeking out mentors and leaders in their field and asking intricate, probing, even indiscrete questions about how things work... and how money is to be made in any given situation. Sometimes this incessant inquisitiveness will lead to a rebuff... more often it leads to insight into just how their business works... and how they can profit from it. The sad truth is, most people have very little in-depth knowledge about just how their business works. They have a nodding familiarity with day-to-day activities but no insight into how the truly successful people made their money... and how they themselves can profit from both regular and extraordinarily business opportunities. In short, they just don't know enough. As a result, they are doomed to remain part of the mediocre, unmoneyed mass.

#6 You Continue To Do Trivial And Inconsequential Things You Shouldn't Do

Upon quick analysis, I knew why. In addition to his regular work, each night he felt compelled to go out drinking with friends, be seen at the "right" parties, etc. He simply had no time left to spend on the development of his practice and his income showed the consequences. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out... but it does take a dedicated and resolute mind to do something about it.

Millionaires focus. They focus on making money from both earned and unearned sources. They realize they need time and concentration to do this, particularly in the early stages of their career, before they've totally mastered their craft. To get this time, they must be ruthless about weeding out the more mundane activities that clog other people's lives... things like washing dishes, doing clothes, loafing about the house, having time-consuming, soap-opera-ish problems. All these must go as unproductive.

When one is young and green, one may like to do these things and be "part of the crowd." As one ages, one realizes one doesn't have enough time to accomplish everything and tends to become more rigorous about excluding the unproductive from one's life. But certain millionaires earlier develop an acute sense of the limits of time... and of the need to use it wisely. Even when young, they know tempus fugit. Thus, they do whatever they can to shuck off the trivial and inconsequential and FOCUS. They know that nothing else is as important as the achievement of their goal.

#7 You Don't Have A Regular Investment Program

Say, for instance, that right now all you can afford to invest is $10 per day, $60 per week. Compounded at just 8% annually the $3120 you invest the first year will be worth $6236.89 in 10 years and will be producing $498.95 a year in income. That nearly $500 you don't have to make through the sweat of your brow!

Now, think of it. Could you afford to save just $10 a day? Your first reaction may be, "No way!" But think! Are you willing to make the necessary sacrifices in current comfort to achieve long-term comfort and security? Most people, people who will never be millionaires, will never make these sacrifices. In the age-old struggle between the grasshopper and the ant, they are quite clearly blithe, unthinking grasshoppers. But you can't be! If you don't have the money to invest now, you must rearrange your life to find the necessary money. Otherwise, you are losing out on two of the millionaire's best friends... time and compound interest.

You don't have to be a Wall Street mogul to take advantage of unearned income, but you must have a regular, consistent, inviolate investment program... and that program needs to start when you're far from being a millionaire.

#8 You Will Settle For Less

All around me every single day I see people who have settled for less... for a home that's not as grand as they'd like... for clothes that are not stylish... for a school for their children that doesn't deliver a top-quality education... in short, for things that are inferior. Future millionaires will live with the inferior when necessary; they realize that sacrifices are a necessary part of their early lives.

But they never settle for the inferior as a constant presence in their lives. In fact, they despise it... not merely for being lowly in itself but for representing a state of mind in which one has accepted the inferior as somehow acceptable, inevitable for oneself and one's family. Future millionaires see situations clearly. They cannot delude themselves, as so many people do, that the inferior is somehow acceptable.

Temporarily accepting the inferior may be expedient as a means of helping achieve ultimate success but to people of the millionaire mind the inferior will always be nothing other than inferior... something, that is, to escape as early and completely as possible. And who will help them escape it? Why, the would-be millionaire alone.

Millionaires, you see, are not waiting for some deus ex machina in the form of a winning lottery ticket or expiring aunt to set them up for life. They know they must do it for themselves and accept full responsibility for doing so. If you can't accept this responsibility for yourself and act accordingly, you can never, never be a millionaire yourself. Merely a penny-poor wishful thinker, which is too, too bad.