Attaining Financial Independence: The Power of Focus

Maintaining focus is very crucial in attaining any goal, including financial independence and freedom. While it is great and exciting to start any new endeavor, how you finish is what matters the most. Setting a goal and getting to work on it is fantastic, but finishing is what separates the men from the boys.

It is very easy to start a savings habit and give up when the next gizmo comes to town, start dieting, and give up at the first appearance of your favorite cake. The battle is won and lost in the mind. If you cannot control your emotions, you will not win this battle.

The journey to financial freedom and independence does not start from your bank account, but your mindset. If you have the wrong mindset, you cannot take the right actions on a sustainable basis. Your mindset will catch up with you, sooner than later. If your mindset is to spend first and save what is left, you are virtually doomed to a lifetime of financial struggle unless you change your ways, or work well into your old age. If you have a lack or poverty mentality, your actions will create a self-fulfilling prophecy by always spending all you earn and ending up broke each month rather than spending less than you earn and investing the difference to increase your income.

Attaining financial independence requires a new mindset, a new set of habits, and the focus to get the desired results. Without focus, you will not go far. You will save for a month or two, and then reach for your savings anytime a need arises, real or imagined. You delay gratification for a season and give in the next. You take one step forward and another step backward. It seems as if you cannot escape the pull of old habits.

You need relentless focus to break the pull of old financial habits, keeping your eyes constantly on your financial goals. There is a price to pay for the attainment of any worthy goal. If you like free things, you will find it hard to pay the price when it comes to crunch time. There is a price to pay for success. It does not come free. When you take your eyes off the ball, you lose the game.

Most of the steps required to achieve financial independence are commonsensical. The reason why so few follow it is that only a few can pay the price to remain focused on the goal over time. We tend to have a short attention span. We get distracted easily when the task at hand does not bring instant results, keep us entertained or the novelty wears off. We get discouraged or bored easily and move on to something new. It takes time for results to show up. A solid foundation takes time to build, often with no apparent sign of progress. It takes focus to stick through and see the results, long after many had given up.