Three (3) Factors that Affect your ability to Achieve Financial Freedom

Saturday, October 15,2021 / 09:10 AM / Grace Agada / Header Image Credit: ACE

"Your background isa rich background as long as you learned something from it and this "something" made you successful." - Grace Agada.

One of the wisestthings to do early on in your career is to know upfront if you will achievefinancial freedom, after which you assess what kind of financial freedom youwill achieve and what your chances of achieving total financial freedom are.This is because not everyone that sets out to achieve financial freedom willachieve it.

Research shows that out of every 100 people only 20% achieve financial freedom,and out of every 100 working professionals only 15% will end up in retirementfinancially free. The big question is - Where would you be at the end ofyour career, and what gives you the confidence that you will achieve financialfreedom?

Here are some ofthe factors that will affect your ability to achieve financial freedom:

First, what is financial freedom? This is the ability to fund your life frompassive income. It is your ability to move from a life that is funded solely byactive income to a life that is funded by passive income. To achieve financialfreedom, you must separate your physical presence from your income such thatyour absence is no longer a disadvantage. This means that your income must comeregardless of where you are, how you work, and whether you choose to work. Thiskind of financial freedom can only be achieved when you have investments whoseinvesting work can be completed before retirement and whose cash-flow can lastfor a lifetime.

Judging from where you stand and the time you have left, would you be able toachieve this kind of financial freedom? The best way to know is to look at yourcurrent life. If 100% of your current life is still dependent on an activeincome, you still have a long way to go. The only way to achieve this kind of financialfreedom is to create a stable passive income that is worth the size of yourcurrent income and then transfer your source of livelihood to it. Only then canyou achieve total financial freedom.

The truth is your current active income only has one purpose, and this purposeis to provide you the resources that you need to be free from depending onactive income. If you fail to wean yourself off your active income beforeretirement, there will be unprecedented financial consequences awaiting you inthe future.

So, now that you know what financial freedom is let's see how to know you willachieve it without fail. There are three factors that will show you if you wouldachieve financial freedom, and your understanding or ignorance of these threefactors is what will determine your financial success.

1. How you InterpretYour Childhood Experiences

One of the thingsthat will affect your financial decisions in life is your childhoodexperiences. Your childhood experiences will affect how you spend, save and whatyou invest in and prioritize as important. Yet your background and childhoodexperiences only play a little role in determining your overall success. Thisis true because successful people come from poor backgrounds, and successfulpeople also come from rich backgrounds. So, no matter your background you canachieve financial freedom. But there is one thing that can determine yoursuccess to a greater degree. This one thing is how you interpret yourbackground and childhood experiences.

There are only two interpretations that you can derive from your childhoodexperiences. The first is a Positiveinterpretation and the second is a negativeinterpretation. Positive interpretations see the good in your backgroundand experiences and uses this good to propel you towards success. It also helpsyou make more wealth creating decisions. Negative interpretations see the badin your background and experiences and uses this bad to demotivate you fromsuccess. It also uses this bad to help you make more wealth draining decisions.Thus, the most rewarding positive interpretation to have, is to see yourbackground as the reason why you will be successful. And the most negativeinterpretation to have, is to see your background as the reason why life ishard for you.

A person with a negative interpretation sees themselves as deprived anddisadvantaged. The moment they begin working, they will make decisions thatdrain their income and give them only little room for savings.

For example, they will use their financial freedom money to put their childrenin the kind of schools they couldn't go to. Even though they became successfulwithout going to expensive schools, and even when success is no respecter ofschool. They will use their financial freedom money to stock their houses withfoods items, that make them feel rich and special. Even though these foods areunhealthy and will land them in the hospital in retirement. They will alsocreate an easy family environment removing any kind of pain, discipline, ordelayed gratification. Even though success require pain tolerance, patience,and resilience.

The results are children with queens' English, fancy University certificatesbut with no real skills to help any employer. Parents are having to carry theload of their graduate children longer than necessary. Children are now sicker,fatter, entitled, and lazy, and worse of all is that they are now moreemotionally fragile in a world that requires toughness to survive. All thesehappened because we are trying to run away from our childhood experiences.The same childhood that made us who we are.

Your childhood and background may not be perfect, but it gave you a gift. Todayyou are the hardworking, resilient, and responsible Breadwinner and Provider evenwithout a Queen's English, fancy certification, or unhealthy foods. All thesedid not fall on you from heaven it came from your background. Until you beginto see the good in your background and rid yourself of your expensive childhooddeprivations and cravings, there will not be any money left to pursue financialfreedom.

Successful people never look at their background in a negative way. Theycelebrate their humble beginnings and use their backgrounds as the motivationto strive towards success. The less material things you need to feel happy,important, and accepted the faster you will achieve financial freedom.Similarly, the more you know why you do the things you do the faster you willachieve success.

2. Who You Model

The Fastest way toachieve any goals is to find a role-model and tap into these three things-TheirKnowledge, Their beliefs, and their actions. You must Learn and model what theyare doing, what their core beliefs are, and how they are thinking to get the sameresults.

The problem is most of us never grew up around wealthy role models. We grew uparound the middle-class. This means that without the extra effort andcommitment to find a wealthy role model you won't make it. You must be able toalways ask yourself-What will a wealthy man do in my situation and what will aPoor Man do? And to then ensure that you are making more of a wealthy man'sdecisions than a poor man's decision. Unfortunately, it is easier to model apoor man's decision than a wealthy man's decision. Because poor men decisionsare easy and poor men are all over the place. But until you model the wealthyman you cannot achieve financial freedom.

Thankfully you can easily find wealthy role models today. There are several ofthem online and there are also at least three presents at your office 24/7,Every day, from Monday to Friday. But rather than connect with them and modelthem you are busy resenting, hating, or judging them. Only a successful personcan show you how to become successful and only successful people can help youachieve financial freedom.

If you keep modeling your middle-class colleagues and the people you saw whilegrowing up, you will end up in retirement dependent just like your parents.

3. Your Discipline

There is only onething that makes a person willing to act, even when they do not feel like it orare afraid to do it-it is Discipline. Discipline is the only way to achievefinancial freedom. And without discipline you cannot achieve financial success.The reason discipline is important is because success requires tough leveldecisions and the commitment to a future that is worth fighting for.Discovering a purposeful future and taking disciplined action is not a funthing to do. So, most people spend their adult life doing the easy things andpostponing the hard things that lead to success. But until you do the hard and highstandard things you will not achieve financial freedom.

Knowing what to do to achieve financial freedom is easy-now you know. Doingwhat you know is the hard part-and frankly this is what is holding you backfrom achieving financial freedom. Perhaps you need help to achieve financialfreedom, get in touch via to [email protected].