• It takes resilience to overcome life's adversities, which seem never-ending
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Raise your hand if you are wondering when your big financial breakthrough is coming. You want to start an important project or have plans for investing, but just can’t seem to find the money to live your dreams.
You have tried many things but none of them have yielded the money you need to improve your life. Something always seems to get in the way: a tough economy, elections, bad weather, uncooperative relatives or jealous neighbours. Following a string of financial losses, it is not surprising some people would blame their woes on malicious spirits.
How long should one keep waiting for a windfall? The average person will probably get less than five financial windfalls in a lifetime, a windfall being the unexpected arrival of a large sum of money. For all you know, you may already have exhausted your life’s quota of windfalls. What next?
John C Maxwell, author of the book The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth, believes that change comes from the seemingly trivial things we do each day, which we call habits.
“Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time,” Maxwell wrote. “You cannot change your life until you change something you do every day.”
Dr Kamal Al-Hassani, who has conducted extensive studies in the field of business administration, says consistency is all about positive habits that have an impact on productivity and performance. Successful people are consistent in their actions, while the unsuccessful easily give up on their goals.
“Consistency is all about repetition, repeating the same actions, habits and rituals over and over again,” he says.
Achieving goals is, therefore, related to cultivating and sustaining the right habits. These include a positive mindset, saving money, meeting or exceeding customer expectations, willingness to learn, honesty and taking care of one’s physical and mental health.
Conversely, consistency also means eliminating negative habits that may be holding you back from the person you dream of becoming. Negative habits include procrastination (delaying action), lateness, overspending, inability to learn from mistakes, dishonesty and not taking care of one’s health.
“We don’t often realise the cost of our bad habits, especially if we are only looking at the short-term,” Sheldon Botes, a financial adviser in South Africa, wrote on LinkedIn. “If you want to live the kind of life that others dream about, then you need to be doing the things that others aren’t.”
Doing things differently also means learning how to manage the biggest distraction of the 21st century: social media. If your family, friends and workmates complain that you are spending too much time on your smartphone, you should take them seriously. Social media addiction will certainly interfere with your performance at work or in school.
Start by putting limits on how much time you are spending on electronic devices. Turn off notifications and do not feel compelled to respond to every message right away. Freeing up time from social media will allow you to concentrate on the path to success, whether at work, school or in your business.
All the best for 2024!