Financial security for you and your family does not just happen - you have to be motivated and disciplined, and you have to have a strategy.
1. Knowledge
There is no substitute for knowing the facts. Financial knowledge comes in two parts: educating yourself generally and knowing your financial situation specifically.
Financial knowledge is not difficult to acquire. It is available everywhere: in newspapers, on TV, radio and the internet, and through your financial institution's promotional publications. For most people, financial ignorance has nothing to do with lack of access and everything to do with attitude. We often say, "This is for other people." But to think this way is to do yourself a disservice. Financial matters affect us all in direct ways. It therefore makes sense to become better informed and to understand
the processes that can enrich or impoverish us.
2. Goals
We all need goals. Without something to strive for, life becomes a grind. This is as true financially as it is in other areas of life. Most of our goals require money, so reaching them means we must have a financial plan to get there.
There are three types of goals: Long term
(for example, to retire with enough to live on comfortably); medium term
(for example, to pay for a child's university education, or to extend a home, or start a business); and short term
(for example, to budget effectively to control your spending to establish a healthy savings pattern). Take a close look at your own goals and work out the financial implications. With realistic goals to strive for, financial discipline and self-control become much easier.
3. Honesty
Knowledge and honesty go hand-in-hand. Knowledge without honesty is unreliable and will do nothing towards helping you to realise your goals. Honesty means assessing yourself, your needs and your areas of weakness. It means facing facts. Are you in debt over your head? Admit it to yourself. Are you free from debt, but unable to achieve your goals due to lack of commitment? You can change your habits and achieve your goals, but it requires an honest look at yourself. Only if you are honest about your shortcomings will you be able to overcome them!
4. Discipline
This is the least popular requirement for financial freedom.
Financial freedom does not mean having unlimited money. It means managing
what you have in such a way that you are free from worry, guilt or fear. Applying discipline where it is required reaps great rewards. Learn to say "no" to yourself. If you keep your goals in sight, it is easier to be disciplined. The people who find self-discipline hardest of all are those with no clear goals and no plan for how to achieve them - or goals that are so distant and unrealistic that they are removed from daily life.
Revisit your goals regularly, apply discipline and self-control, and you stand a good chance of realising your dreams.
5. Compassion
Acquiring wealth can be a worthwhile goal, but on its own it cannot bring satisfaction or fulfilment. True happiness comes from using our resources - whether money, energy or talent - to make a positive difference to the world around us. There are plenty of ways to do this. Some people donate money to charities every month because they approve of the work that the charities perform. Others use their money to give someone else a leg up - perhaps a younger person with ambition, or a mother struggling to make ends meet. Others, again, prefer to put a small part of their wealth back into the community they grew up in. It all makes the world a better place!