It’s easy to think that there are people who are destined to be successful. People who are rich because they are intelligent, they have a good network, they are good looking or their family is wealthy.
What we don’t know is that the key to achieving anything we want lies within us. Every single thing we do everyday matters. Forming good habits is vital to achieving success in life.
I stumble upon a book by Stephen Covey “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I know that it can also be applied to how we handle our finances.
When we think of habits, it means repetition but it will not be successful until we consider these three things to form a habit.
John: I am living paycheck to paycheck and it’s very stressful going to a job I don’t like but I have to because I don’t want my family to starve. Saving and investing money is the only way.
Peter: My friend taught me before what’s the best strategy in saving money and what’s the best investment tool based on my risk appetite. I won’t be having any issue learning all these skills since he promised he will teach me everything he knows.
Luke: I know why I need to save and invest and how it will help me in the future but I want to enjoy my life too. I think I am taking away the happiness I deserve.
John has the KNOWLEDGE, Peter knows someone who can teach him the SKILL and Luke knows what he needs to do but doesn’t have the DESIRE to do it.
I know most of us to have one or two of these but we all need these three in order to create a habit. Once we incorporate all of these in our habit then our next step is to do this every single day until the habit transferred to our subconscious mind.
According to Dr. Maltz, it takes 21 days to form a habit based on his observation on his patients. On the other hand, Dr. Maltz did his research and observed that it takes 66 days to form a habit. The truth is forming a new habit depends on the complexity of the habit you want to form. The longer, the better.
