5 Effective Millionaire Habits to Change Your Life

Is financial freedom one of your lifetime goals? Do you want to get to the point of never having to work again unless you feel like it? Or is traveling business-class or first-class to lavish destinations more your thing?

We all have goals that we want to achieve, and often they are associated with freedom. The freedom to do something over something else is tied to whether you can afford to do so or not.

The choice to do what you want, when you want, and how you want is mostly going to come down to money. If you cannot afford something, you often resort to finding something cheaper that will give you the same type of dopamine.

I personally started changing some of my old habits after reading Atomic Habits earlier this year, and I can already see the difference and impact it's having on my life.

This is why today we will discuss some of the most effective habits to adopt for the rest of the year that will change your mindset and help attract more money into your life.

1. Reading One Book Per Month

I personally used to hate reading. I think I only managed to finish reading one book in high school without having to rely on SparkNotes for chapter summaries. For every other book, I relied on reading summaries online.

But I decided I had to change that and tried to make it more of a habit to be reading after graduating from college. It was only this year that I made it a goal of mine to read 5 books in 2022. But now I love reading so much that I have read 15 books so far. I now average reading 2 books per month.

Now you do not have to read about finance in order to attract more money in your life. You can read about anything of interest to you. Reading allows you to understand the mindset of successful people.

It is like having dinner with them and hearing out what they have to say for far less than a dinner bill. Most books should cost you about $10 or less.

But honestly, I found that dedicating just an hour of my day to reading rather than spending it on social media opened my perspective to many things.

I was able to find my groove with reading by making it a habit. I no longer listen to music on my train rides to and from work. Instead, I open my Kindle app on my phone and read as I go and come back from work. It's an easy 1 hour of reading right there.

I now have ideas about the businesses that I want to start and was able to formulate a plan to implement them just by reading what other successful people have done before me.

2. Choosing Your Circle Wisely

Here is a harsh fact: your friends are holding you back. There is just no way to sugarcoat it.

It stinks to say this, but it is possible that you are not really advancing in your path because you have become too comfortable with the people you hang out with or associate yourself with.

I know the saying "you are the average of the five people around you" is a bit cliche, but it is true. We, as humans, tend to fall in line with what is happening around us.

Let’s say that your goal is to retire by age 35. But the people you hang out with the most love their 9-5 corporate job and enjoy spending their paychecks on dinners and parties every single week. Do you think those people are going to motivate you toward your retirement goal?

Absolutely not! What’s going to happen is that you will lose sight of your goal because you are too busy living someone else's life and not yours.

This is why it is critical to surround yourself with people who are more successful than you or who are striving to improve themselves. This will force you to want to get on their level and push your boundaries.

I recently started networking with friends that are already doing the stuff I eventually want to get started on. I cannot tell you how amazing it has been. They are very supportive and truly want to help and see me succeed.

You can also have "internet friends". These are people that you connect with online who can help you and motivate you to achieve your goals.

On the other hand, your friends may or may not support your journey. It is not because they do not like you or want you to fail.

But your success reminds them that both of you were in the same exact place, and they do not want to face the fact that they are doing nothing while you are out hustling.

3. Actually Achieving Your Goals

Let me just start off by saying that setting goals is not just for the month of January.

You know that time when you feel all empowered because you want to change your life and then 3 weeks later you fall back into your old bad routine?

If you are not going to take your goals seriously, then you are not going anywhere. As a result, it is critical that you divide your big goals into manageable mini-goals in order to stay on track to achieve your main goal.

Here is what that looks like. Let's say that your main goal for this year is to save up to $30,000. If you wait all the way to September or October to re-visit your goal, you will find that it is extremely difficult or impossible to save up to 30K in a couple of months.

But if you break it up into smaller goals then it can be achieved much easier. Now a micro-goal can be saving $2500 per month, so in the end, you will reach the 30K mark.

A nano-goal of that would be saving $625 per week so that you have $2500 at the end of every month so that you have $30,000 at the end of the year.

This is why it is important to set your main goals at the beginning and then make a plan for how you will achieve them.

This is ultimately the difference between ordinary people and successful people. Successful people set high goals and actually go out of their way to achieve them.

There is no point in thinking about what you want to do if you are not going to follow up on it.

4. Paying Yourself First

Paying yourself first is a principle I learned from reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad. The principle has gotten popular over the last couple of years, but it is amazing how many people still do not follow it.

Essentially, it is the process of using your income to acquire appreciating assets that will fund your lifestyle with the income they produce before you start spending on your expenses.

For instance, successful people automatically spend their income on stocks, real estate, or businesses. In contrast, the average person would spend their income on bills, rent, or any other expense that takes money out of their pocket.

The key point here is to learn to keep and invest the money you make before you start spending it on your expenses. This principle forces you to invest in your future self and figure out how to make more money if you are not making enough to pay yourself first.

5. The Power of Compound Effect

The difference between a successful person and an average person is literally time.

Successful people understand that it takes time for great things to happen. This is why they can continue to implement little changes in their lives and just wait on the power of compounding for life-changing results.

Do you want a six-pack? Great! But working out 3 times isn't getting you there. However, working out 3 times a week consistently for a year or two will get you there.

Reading one book and calling it quits is not going to make you smarter! But, reading many books and applying the knowledge in them will drastically change your perception of things.

Investing $500 per month for a year or two isn’t going to make you a millionaire. But if you consistently do it for 35 years, then you will make a million dollars.

The problem is that the average person gives up and doesn't allow time to take its course so that compound effect kicks in. If you want life-changing results, then you've got to let compounding do its magic.

Successful people understand that and leverage compounding to their benefit; everything is about sustained, long-term growth.

Conclusion

Those are the habits that I personally started to implement on a daily basis, and I cannot stress how impactful they have been.

If you are looking to change your life, I suggest you implement some of them, or at the very least, remove toxic habits from your life.

Have a great week!

Muhamed

📖 Quote of the Week

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

From How to Win Friends & Influence People, by Dale Carnegie