Money Mindset

I am not usually the type to set goals and achieve them. Like, seriously. I’ve set goals SO many times but nothing came of them because I never had a solid plan and executed on it. So the fact that I’ve actually set a goal and succeeded for once is kinda cool.

If you’re like me, or even if you’re an over-achiever and just went “whaaat?” at that last sentence, read on if you want to find out how I did it.

The importance of mindset

So y’all know that I have a big fat goal of becoming financially independent from my parents by 31 December 2018. Yeah, that’s hella huge. You’ve gotta start somewhere, so I set a mini-milestone of earning back what I’d spent on that Mindvalley course and my new pair of running shoes ($620 in total) within 30 days.

I set that goal on 13 June and reached it on 29 June, way before my deadline. I promptly had a solo dance party in my living room.

Okay hold up – let’s go back to the start. I honestly don’t think I would’ve gotten serious about my goal of achieving financial independence if a good friend hadn’t given me a copy of the book The Inexplicable Laws of Success by Virend and Verusha Singh.

The content in the book really lit a fire under my ass and changed my perception of what was possible. The best part? It made me take action.

The main takeaway:

We create our reality through our thinking. You become what you think about most of the time.

Since finishing the book, I immersed myself in various books, courses, podcasts and videos to learn as much as I could about various topics including personal development, entrepreneurship and financial literacy.

And it felt like I was getting the same message from so many different places:

Book: The Code of the Extraordinary Mind by Vishen Lakhiani

The world that you’re living in exists inside your head.

You can use your mind to deconstruct the systems and rules that you’ve been living with and open yourself up to a whole new world of opportunities and live a truly extraordinary life. Question the status quo and take the path less travelled – take your life off autopilot!

For Vishen, this meant quitting (or purposely getting fired from) his highly-coveted job at Microsoft and daring to ask his mom at 9 years old why he wasn’t allowed to eat beef due to their family’s religion (all because he wanted to taste a Happy Meal like everyone else).

This book and the accompanying Mindvalley course Extraordinary by Design really prompted me to think about what I wanted from life and helped me set some exciting visions for the future.

Would highly recommend for anyone who doesn’t really know where their life is going and would like to learn how to not just live, but live an extraordinary life.

I’ve also written about a concept called means goals vs. end goals. It’s a subtle but important shift in approaching goal-setting to figure out what you really want in life.

Book: The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape

Don’t be held back by the limiting belief that you’re crap with money.

Anyone can turn around their financial situation if they educate themselves on the right techniques and execute on them. I’ve been implementing some of the tips he provides in the book – one of them being as simple as opening a high-interest savings account to make my money work for me.

Don’t be held back by others’ opinions either.

Scott first went to his boss at the ASX with the idea for The Barefoot Investor and was laughed at. Five years later, after slogging away with 80-hour workweeks filled with his full-time job, freelancing and unpaid work, he finally managed to run his own business full-time.

Podcast: Own Your Hustle by Ruby Lee

When you’re starting a side-hustle, you really need to dig deep into your WHY, so that when shit hits the fan you’ll persist and go through with it.

Allow yourself to dream big and question any preconceived notions that may be providing a bit of resistance – e.g. needing $X to start, not having enough time.

Sometimes, the opinions of family and friends could hold you back without meaning to – so take them with a grain of salt.

Would recommend this podcast for anyone who is looking to start or currently has a side-hustle!

Video: How to Make Yourself Immune To Pain (with David Goggins) by Tom Bilyeu of Impact Theory 

You can be dealt the shittiest circumstances in life and still triumph if you’re willing to suffer to grow.

If you can get through what you hate doing, greatness is on the other side.

David Goggins’ story is the perfect example of where sheer willpower can get you. He went from being bullied, overweight and having low self-esteem to completing the Navy SEALs ‘Hell Week’ three times and making the Guinness World Record for the most pull-ups in 24 hours (4,030 of em).

Would recommend that you give this video a watch, but be warned that expletives abound. That’s what I love about him – he swears so eloquently.

Video: The Biggest Disease Affecting Humanity: “I’m Not Enough” by Marisa Peer 

The common denominator of all our problems? We don’t feel like we’re good enough. Smart enough. Rich enough. Pretty enough. She used a very simple technique with multiple clients that turned their lives around: simply getting them to repeatedly say to themselves, “I am enough”. 

Whatever you tell your mind, it believes. So tell it good things!

Course: Superbrain by Jim Kwik (Mindvalley)

Jim shares 10 morning habits that you can use to jumpstart your brain. One of them that I’ve found really effective is journaling.

I go through a gratitude exercise and think about the things that I’m grateful for – it actually brings me so much joy when I’m writing things down! Also, I set my intentions for the day. I constantly look back on what I wrote to keep myself on track and make adjustments if necessary.

Another habit that has worked really well for me is fitting in a short HIIT exercise to get the blood pumping. The combination of these things makes me feel ready to SLAY the day.

How my mindset helped me achieve my goal

Man, over the past month, I’ve found myself having so much positivity and optimism that I feel like I’m glowing – I kid you not, it feels bloody amazing. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so alive. BUT, it’s not just about having a positive mindset. I’ve always been quite positive and optimistic, but being positive won’t get shit done.

You need to want something so badly that you’ll work your ass off to get it. One of the key points I took away from reading The Inexplicable Laws of Success was the need to write down your goals in very specific terms and then have a detailed action plan to achieve it.

Look, I believed that I was crap at planning and honestly, I still am. But I didn’t have some detailed list of things I needed to do each day (*yawn* – whenever I make detailed plans, I never follow them anyway LOL).

I just constantly reminded myself of my goal and took little steps each day to get closer to it. I’d think about what to do on a certain day depending on how I felt and just went with the flow with whatever came to mind, as long as I did something.

This included being open to opportunities, such as random tasks on Airtasker that led to really fun experiences.

It’s important to just take consistent action. Focus on taking action rather than focusing on the outcome. There were so many times when I didn’t complete tasks within the expected timeframe and when my efforts didn’t reap results but eh, I just let it go and moved on.

How did I achieve my goal? Honestly, it felt as though so many circumstances just lined up perfectly and I even thought it might just be “luck”. But I had to remind myself that those opportunities only presented themselves because I had taken action. 

I tried so many different options and a lot of them didn’t work out. This included applying for lots of gigs on Airtasker, applying for startup internship roles, a part-time role at my local cafe and mystery shopper jobs (LOL), and trying to sell stuff on Gumtree…

Things just have a way of working out. I managed to earn enough from a combination of Airtasker gigs and AirBnB to hit my goal in half the time I gave myself. So yeah. Have a little faith.

Next steps: a new goal

Achieving that mini-milestone has been so liberating and convinced me that I’m able to do so much more. So I’ve set another goal. This would’ve seemed impossible one month ago, but now it doesn’t seem like such a stretch.

Granted, it’s still quite modest, but I’m all for taking baby steps rather than getting discouraged by something that seems too far away.

Here it is:

To earn enough to cover my monthly expenses ($905) by 31 July 2018

I still don’t really have a solid plan for how it’s going to happen. All I know is that I will keep taking action and be open to opportunities – we’ll see how it goes.

I would love to hear about your experiences with goal-setting and what worked (or didn’t work) for you!