Success is a process. So, if you want to change your financial circumstances, you need to adopt a financial success process that automates success.

#1 Create a Blueprint of the Life You Desire

The success process always begins with a vision of the ideal, future life you desire. This could be ten, fifteen or twenty years into the future.

That future life is actually the realization of a collage of dreams that forms the picture of your ideal, perfect, future life. Each dream is something very personal that you desire – the ideal job, $1 million in your investment accounts, a vacation home, no debt, good health, etc.

Your dreams must be what You want. Not what others want for you. Putting your ladder on someone else’s wall will eventually lead to unhappiness and a life of drudgery. As Steve Jobs said in the 2005 Stanford commencement address: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living some Else’s life.”

Pursue YOUR dreams. Not those of your parents, teachers or some other significant influence in your life.

Below is the process to create a blueprint of the life you desire:

1. Create a Script of Your Ideal Future Life – Pretend it is ten years into the future and you are writing in your journal. Describe in detail every amazing thing about this ideal, future life of yours. Also, describe your journey over the past ten years – Exactly what happened over the past ten years? Shoot for 500-1,000 words.
2. Identify Each Dream – Define each specific dream that is a component of your ideal, future life,
3. Create Goals Around Each Dream – Build individual goals around each dream. In order to realize a given dream, it may require that you accomplish numerous goals. Once you accomplish those goals, your dream will be realized. Think of each dream as a rung on a ladder. Every time you realize a dream, you climb that ladder, dream by dream, until you reach the top. At that top sits your ideal, future life.
4. Create Habits Around Your Goals – The final step requires that you forge daily habits (goal habits) that, when accomplished each day, brings you closer to achieving each individual goal.

Building new daily habits isn’t difficult if you know what to do. It simply takes time and consistency. Consistency is the key.

#2 Grow Every Day

Becoming that ideal version of yourself requires that you grow into the person you need to be in order to realize financial success. You do that by forging growth habits:

• Learn everything about your job and the industry you are in.
• Learn everything about the dream you are pursuing.
• Learn everything about the people who can help open doors for you – the influencers.
• Learn everything about significant current events. They might come up in conversation with someone who may be a future door-opener (influencer).
• Every day, learn at least one new fact related to what you do. Document those new facts. I use a Fact Binder for this.
• Every day, learn at least one new word. Document your new words. Use them in conversation that very first day you learn the new word. Write down your new words. I use a Vocabulary Binder for this. It’s broken us into various sections: Words to Use in Writing, Words to Use in Speaking, Words Specific to My Industry/Profession. The words we use create perceptions. Being good with words makes you sound articulate and more intelligent. You want others to see you as intelligent.
• Learn something outside your comfort zone; something that will challenge your thinking and force you to re-evaluate your beliefs. The wrong beliefs will hold you back in life,

#3 Change Your Inner Circle

We pick up most of our habits from those in our inner circle: parents, teachers, family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, mentors, coaches, etc. Those who you associate with frequently will infect you with their habits. For those who desire to become wealthy, it is therefore paramount to associate with individuals who are on the same path you are on.

• Those on the Saver-Investor Path in my study surrounded themselves with other individuals who shared their smart money habits.
• Those on the Corporate Climber Path in my study forged Power Relationships with senior executives within their company and/or their industry.
• Those on the Virtuoso Path will in my study had close friends and colleagues who were also seeking to become the best at what they did to make money.
• Those on the Dreamer-Entrepreneur Path in my study surrounded themselves only with individuals who helped mentor, encourage and support them during their journey.

The common thread among all of the different types of self-made millionaires in my Rich Habits Study was the intentional, conscious effort they made to associate with like-minded individuals.

In short – choose your path to wealth and then surround yourself with others who are on the same path.

#4 Change Your Outer Circle

Your outer circle includes individuals you do business with and individuals you respect and with whom you periodically seek advice from.

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Very few who know, will tell you the truth about success, as an entrepreneur – Successful Entrepreneurs Owe Much of Their Success to Luck

If you are pursuing a dream, running a small business or you are an entrepreneur, much of your fate is in the hands of lady luck.

Luck comes in many forms but it is always an unexpected, unanticipated, unplanned occurrence that rockets you from ordinary to exceptional, from unsuccessful to successful and from a financial Lilliputian to a millionaire.

I learned a great deal about luck from the 177 self-made millionaires who were kind enough to share their stories with me for my Rich Habits Study.

But, I also learned that luck, for those 177 millionaires, was luck they created.

How?

One of the common threads among the 177 self-made millionaires in my study was persistence. They never quit trying, even when success took decades to achieve.

Becoming persistent, therefore, is critical to success, and wealth is just a byproduct of success.

So, how do you become persistent?

Habits.

With habits, feelings and emotions do not matter. How your day is going, doesn’t matter. If you’re not feeling well, or you had a fight with your spouse, you will still engage in your daily habits.

Habits, once formed, take control of your mind and body and dictate what you do on a daily basis.

Habits, by their very definition, are persistent routines. When you adopt daily routines around your business, a dream you are pursuing or goals you trying to accomplish, those habits make persistence automatic.

This is why forging the right habits is so important to success – habits force persistence.

The beauty of persistence is that, eventually, the persistent get lucky – luck is a byproduct of persistence.

And habits create persistence.

Researchers at Harvard University studied 123,000 individuals at the age of 50 and followed them until they died.

They found that there were five factors, or lifestyle habits, that contributed to a longer life span. Individuals who possessed these five habits lived a much longer life than those who did not.

1. Healthy Weight – Individuals who consume fewer calories and have a Body Mass Index between 18.5 and 25. Another way to look at this is pounds per inch:
   • Men – 2.2 to 2.5 pounds per inch of height.
   • Women – 1.9 to 2.3 pounds per inch of height.
2. Daily Exercise – 30 minutes or more per day of moderate exercise.
3. Moderate Alcohol Consumption – No more than 1 glass of wine, beer or alcohol per day.
4. Non-Smoker – Individuals who do not smoke cigarettes.
5. Healthy Diet – Individuals who consume mostly fruits, vegetables and whole grains and avoid eating red meat, saturated fats and sugar.

Men who had these five longevity factors lived an extra 12 years.

Women who had these five longevity factors, lived an extra 14 years.

The good news is that it is not too late to change your lifestyle and adopt these habits. Doing so will increase how long you live.

What happened in the past no longer matters.

Those who become wildly successful all have one common Rich Habit – Future Thinking.

They do not harp on the past – they focus on the future.

They do not beat themselves up over mistakes – they focus on the new education those mistakes taught them and how they will use that education to do it better next time.

They do not focus on what went wrong – they focus on how to fix what went wrong – solutions.

They do not look at the bind they are in – they focus on solutions that will unbind them.

Your past is gone. Whatever your past did to put you in your current circumstances, now is your chance to fix what you can fix.

For the next 12 months:

• Set goals that make your skin tingle.
• Pursue dreams that make your heart sing.
• Build new relationships with people who make you feel good about yourself.
• Develop some new skill that will make you better and more marketable.
• Join a non-profit and meet the amazing people who run it.
• Run, bike, exercise aerobically.
• Start to lift weights or do hi impact exercises (push-ups, squats, jumping jacks, etc.).
• Create a vision of who you would like to be in 12 months. Put that vision in writing. Read it every day. Your new vision will put your subconscious into overdrive.
• Read inspirational books, articles, blog posts.
• Listen to uplifting music.
• Develop one new revenue stream.
• Force yourself to overcome just one fear.

Lastly, look in the mirror every morning and smile because you know something others don’t – you are about to embark on a journey that will transform you into someone who will be better, someone others will admire, someone who you always knew you could be – an amazingly successful, healthy and happy person.

The past is filed away and no longer relevant.

However, the new past you are about to create, your future, is going to be something that will give you great pride. You are about to amaze yourself. You are on the precipice of transforming your life into the dream life you always knew you could have.

You are no longer a prisoner of your past. You are going to create a future that will set you free.

Your miracle is about to unfold.

Believe it! Believe in yourself.

There are those, like me, who believe in you and who are cheering for you.

You wake up in the morning, meandor into the kitchen, see the coffee maker and you make coffee.

You finish eating dinner, you see the TV, you pour yourself a glass of wine, beer or some alcoholic beverage and begin watching TV.

During your commute to work, you notice the yellow McDonald arches, you pull in and order a breakfast sandwich.

We all develop habits that are triggered by things in our environment.

These triggers eventually become unconscious, meaning you are not consciously aware of them. But, your subconscious is all powerful, and it notices them. Once your subconscious notices an Environmental Trigger, it spurs you on to engage in the habit.

Some of those Environmental Habits are good, some are bad.

If you are unhappy with your life, if your life is not going in the direction you desire, there are obviously many reasons for this. Some of those things are outside your control, but many are completely within your control.

One of those things that have an enormous influence over the status of your life is your daily habits.

The good news is that you have 100% control over your daily habits, meaning you can dramatically improve the circumstances of your life simply by changing your habits.

But changing your habits requires awareness. You must become aware of the habits you have, in order to be able to determine which ones are negatively affecting your life. Those that are, are bad habits.

In my book Rich Habits, I offer a powerful strategy that allows you force awareness and help you identify which habits are good and which habits are bad.

Once you are able to identify your bad habits, then you can take control of your life by eliminating those bad habits that are, in large part, responsible for your unhappy life.

How do you take control of your habits?

One way is to alter your Environmental Triggers in order to eliminate bad habits and forge good habits.

How?

Change Your Cell Phone Reminders

You can change the sounds your cell phone makes and those sounds can become triggers, reminding you to engage in a good habit. The theme from the movie Rocky can serve as a reminder to stop watching TV, get off the couch and exercise.

You can set your cell phone reminders to anything that serves to remind you to engage in a particular new, good habit.

Post Pictures Where You Can See Them Every Day

Every day, millions wake up, head for the bathroom, gargle and brush their teeth.  The bathroom mirror is the first thing many of us see in the morning.

Pictures are effective in forming new habits, but not so effective in eliminating old, bad habits.

If you want to stop eating, place a picture on your bathroom mirror of the figure you desire to have. This will act as a trigger to exercise (new habit), and exercise is one of those keystone habits that affect other habits, such as eating junk food.

You can also download a picture to your cell phone and make it your background picture, something you cannot avoid seeing every day.

Remove Environmental Triggers

If you have the habit of watching TV after eating your dinner, which triggers sitting on the couch and drinking alcohol, put a sign on your dinner table that says “Read” or “Exercise” of “Go For a Walk”.

If your kitchen cupboard is a trigger to snack on junk food, then remove all of the junk food and replace it with some healthy alternatives.

If McDonalds or Dunkin Donuts is a trigger to eat junk breakfast food, then change the route of your commute to avoid seeing those yellow arches or that big donut sign.

Depending on the study, 40% or more of your daily activities are habits. Since habits are a major factor in determining the circumstances of your life, changing them must become a priority, if your life is not what you desire.

You are 100% in control of your habits. But only if you are aware of them and take action to change your habits.

Did you know that you put your pants on the same way every day? The same left or right leg goes in first. The same thing with your shoes. You put the same left or right foot into the first shoe you put on.

Habits are unconscious thoughts, behaviors or emotions that exist for one purpose – to free up your conscious brain, so you can think.

Did you know that every day many of you engage in some habits that are actually dangerous?

You wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is reach for a bagel to butter to eat with your coffee. Or, right after dinner, without thinking, you spend hours sitting on the couch, watching TV.

Dangerous Habits take time to impair your health, your finances, your job, or your relationships. The effects of Dangerous Habits take many years before they negatively affect your life.

Awareness is the key to putting an end to dangerous habits. That is why in my books, Rich Habits and Change Your Habits Change Your Life, I highlight the importance of spending three days writing down all of your behaviors, thinking and emotions. You need three days in order to see a pattern that occurs during different times of the day. That repetition = a habit.

Only when you make yourself consciously aware of your dangerous habits, by seeing them on paper, can you put an end to them.

What are some Dangerous Habits?

• Eating junk food every day (cancer, heart disease, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, neurological disorders).
• Watching TV for hours a day, while sitting on a couch (cardiovascular disease, heart disease).
• Sitting for hours while engaged in social media or while on the Internet (cardiovascular disease, heart disease).
• Drinking too much alcohol (cancer, neurological disorders).
• Spontaneous spending (poverty).
• Speeding in your car during your morning commute to work (car accident).
• Using your cell phone while driving your car (car accident).
• Constant worrying (chronic stress which leads to cancer and other diseases).
• Anger or other uncontrolled toxic emotions (destroys relationships).
• Gossip (destroys relationships).
• Smoking cigarettes (lung cancer, heart disease).
• Arguing, fighting with others (destroys relationships or can lead to divorce).
• Sarcasm or making fun of others (destroys relationships).
• Procrastination (leads to poor work product and loss of trust).
• Taking drugs (can lead to addiction which damages health).
• Gambling (poverty).
• Lifestyle creep (no savings or creates excessive debt, which can lead to poverty).
• Living beyond your means (no savings or creates excessive debt, which can lead to poverty).
• Hate (chronic stress, which impairs health).
• Using credit cards (poverty).
• Not reading to learn (lack of knowledge, which impairs job performance).
• No life insurance (puts family at risk of poverty, if you die).
• Infidelity (divorce, which can lead to poverty).

Become aware of your habits. Eliminate Dangerous Habits. Then, live long and prosper.

The conscious part of your brain is the neocortex, or outer layer of the brain. It’s only been around for about 200,000 years. The conscious brain is limited – it can only focus on one thing at a time. It is incapable of multitasking.

The subconscious parts of your brain, the limbic system and brain stem, have been around for millions of years. It is highly evolved, powerful, versatile and able to multitask to an amazing degree. Intuition (gut feelings), controlling emotions, keeping your organs functioning simultaneously, memory formation and many, many other things, performed all at once.

Because the conscious brain is limited in what it can do, it likes to offload tasks and behaviors to the subconscious brain, which it knows to be all powerful.

Habits are automated behaviors and processes that have been offloaded by the conscious brain to the subconscious. This novel solution to cognitive overload, sets your conscious mind free. Once a behavior becomes a habit, the conscious mind is set free.

When you think of habits, think of them as your friend – they exist to set you free.

Habits give you freedom to think. Freedom to daydream. Freedom to create. Freedom to make decisions. Freedom to problem solve.

When you forge Rich Habits, over time, they create freedoms everyone desires:

• Freedom From Financial Struggles.
• Freedom from Poor Health.
• Freedom From Toxic People.
• Freedom From Unhappiness.
• Freedom From Debt.
• Freedom to Do Work You Love.
• Freedom to Spend Your Wealth Engaging in Activities You Enjoy.
• Freedom to Spend More Time With Loved Ones.

Even better, when you forge Rich Habits, you can pass on those habits to your children, and set them free.

Old habits die hard. The keys to habit change are Awareness and Tracking.

Awareness 

Awareness = Knowing what habits you currently have or don’t have. Some of the habits you have are good habits and some are bad habits.

Make a list of the bad habits you would like to remove. Also, this is a good time to make a list of some good habits you would like to adopt.

I listed many of the good habits in my books Rich Habits and Change Your Habits Change Your Life. If you don’t have my books, here’s a good list from SUCCESS Magazine:

16 Rich Habits https://www.success.com/16-rich-habits/

Tracking

Tracking = a system or process that makes habit change possible.

Because habits are sticky, you need some process to help you in your quest to remove bad habits and add good habits:

• Daily To Don’t List – This is a list of bad habits you currently have that you want to eliminate. Each day that you are able to avoid engaging in your bad habits, you check off the box next to the To Don’t Habit.
• Daily Should Do List – This is a list of good habits you would like to adopt. Each day that you engage in a good habit, you check off the box next to the Should Do Habit.

After about a month, the neural connections behind old bad habits will begin to weaken and the new neural connections behind new good habits will strengthen. Depending on the complexity of the habit, it could take anywhere from a few weeks to six months before an old habit dies or a new habit is formed.

Keep it simple. Focus on no more than three old bad habits and three new good habits.

Good luck and let me know how you are progressing.

According to a 2013 Associated Press survey, 80% of America’s adults were struggling with unemployment, poverty or near poverty. That’s a lot of unhappy people.

Unhappy people tend to have unhappy thoughts. Happy people tend to have happy thoughts.

Cognitive psychologists call this tendency to see the world through either a negative or positive lens, mood congruency.

According to the latest science, negativity causes tunnel vision, limiting creativity and inhibiting your ability to think clearly. When the lens through which you view the world is negative, you see nothing but problems and become blind to opportunities and solutions.

If you’re struggling financially, a negative mental outlook acts like gasoline, fueling the flames of negativity and perpetuating a life of financial struggle.

Conversely, a positive mental outlook enhances creative problem solving. It gives you the mental tools to lift yourself up in order to overcome your obstacles.

But how do you flip the switch on your mental outlook?

Gratitude is the gateway to optimism and a positive mental outlook. Gratitude forces you to become aware of the good things about your life: my car started today, I was able to feed my family, I have a roof over my head, I’m healthy, I’m alive, I have a loving family, etc.

When you focus on the good that is in your life, instead of the bad, you force your brain to shift from negative to positive.

If you make gratitude a daily habit, eventually your positive mental outlook will overpower your negative mental outlook.

Gratitude changes the lens through which you view your world, from negative to positive. And when that happens you’ll begin to see solutions to your problems. Ideas will pop into your head that will help you climb your way out of your financial worries.

Expressing gratitude every day is not some pseudo, new age B.S. Gratitude is the gateway to optimism and a positive mental outlook. It’s the means to transforming your life from one filled with limitations to one with no limits.

On January 1, 2016, Jaylon Smith, widely regarded as the #1 outside linebacker in college football and considered a top draft pick for the NFL, tore both his ACL and LCL – ligaments that attach the knee to the thigh bone. Even worse, there was significant nerve damage. Nerve damage that might be permanent.

Taring either the ACL or LCL is bad, but taring both, at the same time, while damaging the nerves that run from the knee to the thigh bone, well, most never recover from something like that.

But Jaylon Smith was different.

“I am a leader. I am the best outside linebacker in football. Nothing’s changed. I’ll be OK.”

The Dallas Cowboys drafted Smith in the 2016 draft, taking a huge gamble on a linebacker that might never play again.

Following a very complicated knee surgery, Smith underwent nearly a year of intensive rehab, while Dallas patiently stood by.

Fast forward – today, Smith is the leader of Dallas’s defense. He may be the best outside linebacker in the NFL.

Smith never doubted he would play football again. He never wavered in his belief in himself as the best outside linebacker in football. That was his identity. That’s what he saw when he looked in the mirror. And that belief in who he was, his identity, healed his ligaments and his nerves.

If I were to ask you who you see yourself to be, would you have an honest answer?

If you don’t have a clear vision of who you are, you have an identity crisis.

We all face adversity in life. But, adversity will break you if you don’t have a clear vision of who you are.

However, for those who look in the mirror and know exactly who they are, adversity will only make you stronger.

Those who succeed in life, overcome adversity because they have a clear vision of who they are. Their identity is their GPS, constantly moving them forward to the realization of their dreams and their goals.