What if there were a way that you could have more of the things you want in life? A better car, more time with family, better and more frequent vacations, or anything else you can think of. Would you be willing to make a few changes in your life in order to get these things?
Have You Lost Your Dreams?
Most people are good dreamers when they’re young. We imagine what life could be: the things we’ll do, the places we’ll go, the people we’ll influence. But, as we get older and become part of “the real world,” the temptation surfaces to deny or suppress our dreaming. There are a few big reasons this happens. One, that’s what people around us do. As you know from being a reader of this blog, that’s never a good reason to do anything! But a second reason is that often the practical cost of all the things we’d like to do adds up to a great deal more than we earn in income. This is a real limitation, but I have some good news: it can be overcome in two ways.
Owning Your Priorities
The first way to overcome the gap between what your dream life costs and the money you have available is to eliminate things which are not essential. For example, I may dream of owning a top-of-the line road bike, but don’t currently have the $1,500 in the bank to purchase one. However, owning the bike of my dreams is actually within my reach. I can get the $1,500 I need if I will simply commit to cutting $1,500 from other areas in my life. Maybe I collect $200 by abstaining from buying coffee from Starbucks for a year. I can collect another $300 by canceling cable TV for three months, and get $150 more by selling an old stereo that I never use. What I’m doing here is sacrificing the things that aren’t important to me in order to obtain that which is important to me.
We often let statements like, “I wish I could afford that,” or, “someday I hope to be able to…” come out of our mouths. As in our example above, the fact of the matter is that we can afford the things we’re dreaming about, but we refuse to give up the other things in our life that we need to sacrifice in order to get it.
Instead of Shrinking Your Dreams, Expand Your Income
The long-term way to overcome the gap between the life we imagine and the life we can afford is to develop an asset. One of the best definitions of an asset, especially in the context of what we’re discussing here, is Robert Kiosagi. In his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert defines an asset as something you own that produces a stream of income for you. By this definition, a house you own and live in isn’t really an asset, because it moreso takes your money, through taxes, interest, and upkeep expenses, than it produces in capital appreciation for you. An asset by Robert’s definition would be ownership in a growing company, a stock or bond, or creating a franchise. What assets do you have currently? What opportunities do you have to develop an asset?
We’ll Show You How
If you don’t know where or how you could begin to create an asset for yourself, you are in the right place! Part of what we do as part of our ThriveMart business is something called, “personal franchising.” We help people to do what we’ve done—start a business that they own without the risks and financial investment typically required to launch a business. Visit our ThriveMart facebook page and send us a message to learn more, and remember what Zig Ziglar says, “you can have anything you want in life if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want!”