By: Roshawn Watson



Your vision of the future will be a powerful influence on your finances. For example, why would one save, invest, and practice frugality if he is certain that his efforts are futile anyway? It is the hope of a better financial future that modulates our behaviors. However, in a pessimistic world, developing and maintaining this hope can be a real challenge. Here are 6 ways to see a bright financial future.







Start Small

Don’t despise small beginnings. It doesn’t matter whether it is purchasing your first stock or bond, starting a side hustle, or launching a product in a test market. The point is you started. Systematic progression towards your goals is key to seeing a bright future. For instance, Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics picked 6 things that she wanted to accomplish every day and methodically completed them. This 1 habit has been called pivotal in her establishing her billion dollar brand. Don’t trivialize action. Even if the action is as simple as investing what the typical American household spends monthly on a car payment, that would yield a couple million over a working lifetime (and if the assumptions are half wrong, you’ll still be a millionaire).



Rome was not built in a day, and neither is your financial future.





Keep Perspective

When you are attempting high goals, sometimes it pays to keep perspective.



Recently, someone recounted an interesting story. A lot of construction was being performed, and a traveler saw a worker and asked what he was doing. The worker said “I am hauling rocks from one location to another.” The traveler was unsatisfied, so he asked another worker what he was doing? The second worker replied that they were “building a wall.” The traveler still sensed that there was more to the project, so when he saw a third worker, he asked what he was doing. The third worker said “we’re building a castle.” Now, all of the workers were doing essentially the same tasks on the same project; however, who do you think would be more motivated to be excellent in his work: someone who was hauling rocks or building a castle?





If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well. Dr. Martin Luther King







Map it Out

Architects are wonderful models for achievers. Architects are skilled in design, vision, and oversight. Similarly, we can design the lifestyles that we desire. One of the best ways to ensure that your life will move in the right direction is to see and plan your future in advance.



Now, some see a world of abundance whereas others only see lack, and they are both right.





Think you can or think you can’t, in either case you are right





If you desire to change the level of your life and your finances, what future do you see? It is difficult to move past your convictions, so hopefully you are persuaded to pursue financial independence. We’ve already been empowered. There is more information now than ever before, and modern technology and other advances have literally made it possible to have business at nearly the speed of thought. Apparently, you can even earn a million dollars a year by being a YouTube star.



As the architects of our own lives, it is now incumbent upon us to create a plan of what we want the next 3-5 years to look like. Begin with your desired end in mind.



The dream is the fuel, but the plan is the map!





Engage Others

No man is an island onto himself



In general, successful people want to engage other successful people. It doesn’t matter whether you call it your inner circle, your cabinet, or your mastermind group; recognize that your dream will likely require the impartation, the participation, or at the very least the encouragement of another. In fact, if your dream can be accomplished alone, then one must wonder why have you set your sights so low? Great people convalesce around great dreams. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Carnegie, Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates all recognize the benefit of connecting to a brain trust.



“The glory of friendship is not in the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is in the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson



I certainly understand independence, but there is a good reason interdependence is commonly thought of as operating on a higher plane. When you are fully engaged in a group and pursuing excellence, there is a creative synergy that can propel you much further than if you decided to go it alone.





Have Financial Heroes



I can not stress the importance of heroes enough. I believe I first became aware of the significance of heroes after hearing the profound story of a former brick layer. He was nearly illiterate as an adult but developed a strong passion for success. He hung on every word he could find from Winston Churchill and other high achievers that he admired. He patterned his life after his heroes and become one himself. While I don’t know his net worth now, in the mid-nineties, his net worth was approaching $1 billion. When he addressed us, he frequently quoted those who had inspired him to do the impossible. He said “you need to develop a vocabulary of success, so study those who are successful.”



As a society, we spend far too much time tearing down achievers rather than learning from them. If someone is kind enough to share with you their accomplishments, cherish the opportunity to learn from their greatness rather than looking for faults. There will always be faults, as we are all human, but it is useless to be preoccupied with pointing them out. Instead, we should learn from those who have mastered areas that we often have not.





Revisit Your Dream

Dreams are cursed with a short lifespan – Candice Bergen



It is amazing what one must endure when when he sets out to do something uncommon; however, the dream is the fuel. It’s what propels one to endure the criticism, the setbacks, the lies, and the misunderstandings. I recently highlighted some of the challenges one faces in achieving financial excellence in Do You Have The Courage To Be Wealthy. Still, some argue that frugal individuals don’t struggle with societal pressures anymore than anyone else. The problem is until you have been relegated to obscurity because of your “weird” beliefs, it is hard to empathize. Perhaps EE Cummings said it best “to be nobody but yourself in a world doing its best to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human can ever fight and never stop fighting.” If you think for one second people will idly sit back while push yourself well beyond their comfort zone, then you’re naive. That’s the reason why it is so important to revisit your dreams frequently. Keeping your dream alive is arguably one of your greatest weapons in your arsenal for success because doing so centers your focus on your future and creates blindness to the unimportant.





My great mistake, the fault for which I can’t forgive myself is that one day I ceased my obstinate pursuit of my own individuality. – Oscar Wilde