admin

As a Felicity Seeker, I know you strive to live your life to the fullest. For most of us, this includes financial freedom. After all, who wants to be poor in life?

There are endless ways to become rich in our world. However, many people underestimate the importance of the right mindset.

Because your thoughts shape your actions and your actions shape your reality. If your thoughts are not designed for wealth, your life will be just as little.

To help you on your way to financial freedom I collected 9 mindsets that you might have that are keeping you poor.

Analyze yourself and find out which of these mindsets apply to you. Above all, you have to be honest with yourself.

Read also: 7 Mindset Changes You Need To Make In 2020

Read also: 10 Mindsets Of Successful Women You Need To Adopt ASAP

---

1. You think money is the root of all evil

Although we live in a world that shows us daily what immense good money can do, many people still believe that money is the root of all evil.

First of all did you know that this is an incomplete quote?
The apostle Paul wrote: the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

And this may be true to some extent. Loving money too much is greed. Being greedy causes people to throw all their morals in the wind and do everything necessary to accumulate capital.

If you want to become financially free, you have to believe money is something amazing. If you think of money as something terrible, you won´t open yourself up to earn it.

It is just like if you think that your diet won´t work. Guess what, it probably will not work.

And should you struggle to think of money as something good, always remember that the more money you have, the more you can help other people!

2. You feel entitled to money

I have talked about this before. So many people nowadays feel entitled to money.

They believe they deserve a raise, they think the government should take care of their pension and that the rich should pay for their needs.

To become wealthy, you need to stop feeling like other people should take care of your finances.

You need to accept that you have control over your financial well-being.

If you want more money, you have to be creative and create more wealth!

If you keep looking for ways to make some extra money, suddenly, many unknown doors will open up for you!

3. You are afraid to invest in yourself

” The best investment you can make is in yourself.”

Warren Buffett

As important as this wisdom is, only few people know or practice it.

I get it; investing money in yourself is scary. Trust me; it has been very uncomfortable for me to spend the money necessary to start this Blog.

But the truth is, not only are you the only thing you can ever have full control over but investments in yourself will never be lost.

The knowledge and skills you will acquire through books, courses and seminars will accumulate and make you your most valuable asset.

You will be able to make money out of many different sources and with increasing ease.

But you have to take the first step and invest in yourself. Nobody else will do it!

4. You follow the crowd

Peer pressure is intense, we all know that. But to become rich, you have to withstand that pressure and start swimming against the stream.

Because unfortunately, the crowd isn´t wealthy. They obviously don´t know how to become rich so why should you do what they are doing?

The best example is the stock market. Whenever the stocks are dropping many inexperienced investors frantically start to sell their shares, which makes the value drop even lower.

For all the successful investors, this is like Christmas!

They can get the stocks for sale, and once the value rises again, they can double or triple their wealth.

If you follow the crowd, you will only arrive at business opportunities that have already been exhausted.

To become wealthy, you need to find opportunities before they are trending.

5. You think “I can’t …”

There we have it again. Another common limiting mindset of our society.

Nowadays we regularly speak and think in negative terms.

We talk about things we “can´t do”, “cannot afford”, “don´t want” or “will not”.

We focus way too much on the things we can´t do, than on the things we actually can or want to do.

This creates a problem.

Once you think “I cannot be successful” or “I will never be rich” your brain stops working.

You need to ask yourself “How can I be successful?” and “How can I become rich?” This way, your brain will start creating solutions for your problem, and you can work towards your goal.

So stop telling yourself you can´t afford something and start thinking about how you can afford it!

Read also: 9 Ways To Overcome Limiting Beliefs

6. You don’t know the difference between being able to buy something and being able to afford something

This one is huge! Because so many people get it wrong.

The financial ability to buy something does NOT mean you can afford it!

Let´s say you have 2.000 € in savings. Technically, you can purchase that luxury Maldives holiday.

Instead, use that money and invest it into assets. That way, your money will start to work for you, and with some patience, you will be able to afford a new iPhone.

7. You focus only on one stream of income

If you are guilty of this, it is not your fault. It is what they teach us at school.

We have always been taught to find ONE good job that pays the bills.

But there are two flaws with that concept.

Number 1: For many people nowadays, one job isn´t enough to pay the bills. Over the last few years, there have been multiple studies that found that an increasing number of people have a second or even third job to bring in the necessary money.

Number 2: With one stream of income you are sitting on a one-legged stool. The problem with that is that you are dependent on that income.

Should it disappear for whatever reason, you have to scramble to find a new source of income before your savings run out. And sadly, most people do not have enough savings.

You need to diversify your streams of income. This is how you can live a careless life and do not have to worry about the next financial crisis.

8. You focus on active income

Most people nowadays earn active income. Meaning they trade their time for money, usually in the form of employment.

This concept also has two issues.

Number 1: You only have 24 hours in a day.

Meaning the time you can trade for money is limited. So the only way to earn more is by increasing your pay rate.

But as an employee, you only have a limited leeway to get your boss to give you a raise.

You have absolutely no control over any of that. And all of those scenarios are things that happen daily to dozens of companies.

9. You think you don‘t care about money

Finally, we come to our last but certainly not least important point.

No matter how much you try to tell yourself that you do not care about money … you do care.

As long as you do not live inside a cave or on a desert island you care about money. Simply out of necessity. Without money, you won´t have any food, clothes, housing, electricity, water and so much more.

We live in a world directed by money. And while many people may curse that, it is actually a wonderful thing. It has enabled us to rise to a powerful and highly intricate society.

Because money is so important, you need to put in the effort to become financially literate. That might be one of the most important skills any person can have.

But for some inexplicable reason, not even our educational system teaches us about it. And we always thought school was designed to prepare us for life.

If you want to become financially literate, you have to educate yourself.

With the amount of free content online, this is incredibly easy.

But if you want to go deeper into the topic, I recommend you to read the Rich Dad Poor Dad series by Robert Kiyosaki.

That man has made it his mission to shine a light on the topic of money. I can highly recommend his books!

If you want to go even deeper into the whole topic of money and investing check out my Reading List for Personal Growth. I compiled my favorite life-changing books on subjects from Finances, Relationships, Mindset and more.

Reading those books and implementing the information you learn can really put your life to a whole new level!

---

So what do you think, Felicity Seekers? Do you believe these mindsets can bring you closer to financial freedom?

On which of those points do you need to work the most?

Comment down below! I´d love to hear your thoughts.

Success requires a broad set of characteristics: Ambition, confidence, patience, resilience, creativity and many more. Among those characteristics, a certain kind of maturity is needed to succeed in life.

There are many misconceptions about what it means to be mature. We hear things like “grow up!” or “behave your age!” or “you are so immature!”.

I believe growing up and being an adult has absolutely nothing to do with how you look or what things you like.

In fact, I believe it improves your happiness if you do not lose your childlike sense for fun and can still enjoy Hanna Montana or Hot Wheels.

Growing up depends much more on maturing your mindset. That’s where the real change is supposed to happen.

Being mature has to do with your values and how you perceive the world around you.

And although many people are legally adults, they still have an immature mindset that keeps them from leveling up in life.

This article is not meant to criticize you. It is supposed to make you aware of things you might want to change in your life to get one step closer to success.

1. Your perception of time has changed

As children, we didn’t care much about time. Time couldn’t pass quick enough for us.

We wanted it to be Christmas already so that we could open our presents.

We asked a hundred times when we would finally arrive at our destination.

And we couldn’t wait until we were finally old enough to watch that movie, to ride that rollercoaster or to drive that car.

Time often seemed never-ending.

However, as you grow up, that suddenly changes.

There is no specific age when that switch will happen to you. For some people, it occurs at the beginning of their thirties. For me, it happened with eighteen.

Suddenly, I noticed that the 8-hour drive to my grandparents passed quicker than when I was younger.

I always used to dread that arduous drive, where I always needed to find new ways to entertain myself.

Now, that time seems to pass almost twice as quickly and I could stare out of the window the whole time.

The same happened during my day to day life. When I started studying Law, I quickly realized that this was the first time in my life, that I felt like there were not enough hours in a day.

There was always something left I wanted/needed to do.

As you get older, your perception of time shifts. Time suddenly passes way quicker than it did when you were a child.

Due to that, we become more aware of how fast our time is running out.

In fact, we only really have a third of the time we think we have.

Just think about it. The day has 24 hours. Let’s say you sleep 8 hours a day (if you sleep less, great! That means you have more time left for yourself.) That’s a third of your day.

If you have a 9 to 5 job, you work 45 hours out of 168 hours a week. If we add the time to get to and from work, we can say you spent another third of your time working.

So what is left? In the end, we only have about a third of our week to spend freely.

And of course, that third also includes cleaning your house, driving to and from places, etc.

Suddenly, there isn’t much time left at all. How do you want to spend that time?

Mature people value their time more. They try to use it intentionally and don’t want to waste it on unimportant things like binge-watching a series. Because is that something you are going to look back on at your deathbed?

Because mature people spend their time intentionally, they can accomplish much more in life.

I am sure you follow some YouTubers that are the same age as you. They have the same number of hours in a day as you have. And they might even be university students like you or have a 9 to 5 job like you.

While you are watching multiple YouTube videos a day, they are creating the videos! They are building a business which will provide for their future!

But they are not much different from you. They simply decided to watch less YouTube videos and instead start creating some themselves.

We all have the same number of hours in a day. Your success depends on how you spent them!

Read also: 15 Ways To Spend Your Time Wisely

2. You value punctuality

This goes hand in hand with valuing time. Once you know how limited time is, you do not want to waste yours or others.

Lost time can never be retrieved! If you look at it that way, to steal somebody’s time is one of the worst things you can (legally) do to them!

Punctuality is a highly valuable skill if you want to network. Because successful people are not willing to let other people waste their time. And you need to surround yourself with people more successful than you are if you want to level up.

Because as Jim Rohn famously said:

“You are the average of the five people you spent the most time with.”

Jim Rohn

So be punctual!

3. You realize the world doesn’t revolve around you

Part of growing up and maturing is the realization that the world does not revolve around you.

We live on a planet populated by 7.5 billion humans! (If you want the exact number check out the population clock).

And although we all are the leading role in the movie we call our life, we do not even appear in the movies of the vast majority of humankind.

I don´t want to depress you, but as long as you are not Beyoncé or Elon Musk, not many people will take notice should you suddenly pass away.

We cannot stop living in a first-person view. But we can try to look at situations out of the bird’s perspective.

Stop judging people by their words or parts of their behavior. You never know what could have been the cause of that.

The sooner you learn how to look at the world through other people´s eyes, the easier it will get for you to get along with them.

Being able to connect with others and providing high value for them is key to building a successful business.

4. You care less about what other people think of you

As we mature, we get to know ourselves better. We develop various interests and opinions, which will clash with those of others.

It is inevitable. As soon as there is more than one opinion, there are going to be people that will disagree with you.

If you keep caring what other people think of you, you will never be able to be yourself and always have to adapt to different peoples opinions.

But you only have one life. Everybody else already has a life of their own. Why should they be allowed to decide over yours? You should be the only one deciding how to live it.

And anyway, why should you even try to be like everyone else? Our world rewards uniqueness!

We all love people that are unapologetically themselves! We need people who strive for the extraordinary!

Just imagine nobody would have been crazy enough to fit a whole computer into a small mobile device.

Imagine a world without insane inventors and visionaries that dreamed of carriages moving without horses or of humans walking on the moon.

Can you even think of one famous person, who is absolutely and utterly normal? What even is “normal”?

To succeed in life, you need to be unique. You need to be able to give people something that they will not get from others. And with that automatically come others who will criticize you for that uniqueness.

But truly mature people know better than to be bothered.

5. You are comfortable spending time alone

Working your way to the top can be lonely. You have to put in long hours and might need to cancel multiple meetings with your friends.

If you are serious about making it to the top as fast as possible, you will probably stop partying and start hustling.

But be aware! Being a loner can actually keep you from succeeding! The most significant achievements are always a group effort.

On your way to the top sooner or later you will need the help of a mentor or start to outsource specific tasks.

So, expect to be lonely at times, but do not try to do it all on your own!

6. You have a work-life balance

As mentioned in the previous point, you will not always have somebody at your side on your way to success.

Therefore you need to look after yourself.

Maturity means being self-aware and listening to your body. Are you tired, hungry, thirsty or overwhelmed?

Your body and mind are the things that keep you alive. There is no living without them.

So be mature enough to look after yourself or else you will burn out or get sick before you were able to succeed.

7. You don’t have a victim mentality

We all know that children like to blame everyone else for their failures. It is the fault of their parents, their siblings, their classmates, their dog, their friends, their teachers and so on.

Scaringly enough, many adults stick to that victim mentality. They always have somebody to blame for why they didn´t get that promotion or why they are too late.

Real maturity means to take responsibility for your own life!

Get rid of that victim mentality and accept that you have control over most things in your life. Therefore if something goes wrong, you have to blame yourself and nobody else!

Connected to that victim mentality is the belief of being entitled to things.

The vast majority of people believe that the rich should take care of them. They feel entitled to the money of other people. But why?

Imagine you work for years for your business to succeed. Each year you get richer and the richer you get, the more people feel entitled to your money. Isn´t that strange?

You got that money by providing value for those people. Why do they think you should give them more?

I believe one cause for this Robin Hood mentality is that people can´t take responsibility for their own lives.

8. You are open-minded

“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.”

Frank Zappa

Having an open mind makes you available for incredible opportunities.

Life presents us with different opportunities every day. In this world possibilities are limitless.

If you are ready to seize them, incredible success awaits you!

---

And if you want to feed you mind with more inspirational content I highly suggest you check out my Reading List for Personal Growth. I update it regularly on all my favorite non fiction books.

9. You focus on delayed gratification

A huge problem of our generation is the need for instant gratification. Nowadays we get everything at a moments notice.

Do you want something to eat? Call the delivery guy!
Do you have a question concerning a product? Customer service is available 24/7.

Whatever we want or need we can have it almost instantly. This has created an impatient society.

But guess what? There are some things you can´t have instantly. Among them is success.

There is no quick fix for success. And most people do not get famous overnight. It might seem like they did, but often they put in a lot of work until that “magic” night happened.

If you want to be successful, whether it is in sports or business, you need to be patient.

Take this Blog for example. I´ve been writing content for almost a month. And until now absolutely nobody has ever read a single piece of my content.

If I let impatience overtake me now and give up, I will never have success with my Blog.

But I am not aiming for short term gratification. I want to build a sustainable business that will give me financial freedom for decades to come. Understandably, that needs more time.

You need to plan long term!

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

Bill Gates

10. You know when to take risks

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”

John A. Shedd

The most significant success comes from taking calculated risks.

The emphasis lies on “calculated”. Being mature means to ponder when it is worth to take a risk.

Jumping off a cliff or replicating the Fast and Furious won´t get you closer to success in life. In fact, it might shorten your life significantly.

Maturity means finding a healthy balance between risk and safety and using risk to your advantage.

11. You know when to pick a fight

Just like with the previous point this one is all about finding the balance.

Sometimes voicing your opinion and getting into a fight can put you massive steps forward in life.

---

There you have it. What about you, Felicity Seekers, are you mature enough to succeed in life?

What was your favorite point and which one do you intend to improve in your life?

Leave a comment down below!
I´d love to see how mature this community is.

We Felicity Seekers always try to improve ourselves. We try to develop habits, mindsets, and abilities that will get us further in life.

To figure out what it is we need to incorporate into our lives we look up to the most successful people in every area of life.

There are many things we learn from them. But probably the most crucial ability we see successful people have, whether it is in sports, business, politics or science, is self-discipline.

And it makes sense. Without self-discipline you won´t get far in life because there will always be things you don´t feel like doing but have to do.

Self-control also plays an essential part in my life.

It allows me to skip many of my lectures and work more efficiently from home.

I never saw this as something complicated. However, almost all of the classmates with whom I talked about it replied that they would also study from home if they could motivate themselves and would actually do the work necessary.

Another part of my life where discipline is needed is this Blog.

Although I thoroughly enjoy creating valuable content, I definitely have days that I would rather chill the evening after dealing with Law all day long. Using my willpower, I keep pushing through.

1. Be clear about your why

The first step to master self-discipline is to get clear about what your intentions are. Why do you want to do that task?

You are probably putting in that long studying hours because you want to graduate with good grades, so that you can get a job that will pay well, so that you can live a comfortable and happy life.

Once you remember your “Why”, it will be easier to get things done.

Maybe you even find out that your “Why” isn´t worth fighting for. In that case, you either need to find a stronger “why” or you should consider if you want to continue doing what you do.

2. Figure out your Patterns

When it comes to self-discipline, we all have some areas in life, in which we struggle more to be disciplined than in others.

The key is to expect those moments beforehand so that you can take precautions. You need to remove all of your usual distractions and temptations.

Is it always in the evening, when you can´t get yourself motivated to do any studying? In that case, you need to study before that. Maybe that means waking up earlier.

Do you lose yourself watching Netflix or YouTube? Ban those apps from your phone or put a time limit on them.

Do you keep hitting the snooze button and fall back asleep? Put your alarm away from your bed, so that you have to stand up in the morning. Once you are standing there, keep standing until that urge to close your eyes has weakened enough for you to go on with your day.

Get to know yourself better. Become self-aware.

Once you develop self-control dealing with life becomes more comfortable.

3. Deconstruct your Goal

As I mentioned in my “11 Effective Ways to deal with Overwhelm” it is easy to become overwhelmed by a big goal.

And the more overwhelmed you are, the more difficult it will be to have the willpower to start working on that goal.

Therefore you need to make your goal more achievable by dividing it into multiple smaller goals.

So if my goal is to run a 5-kilometer marathon. I need to train for let´s say two months. This week, I would need to go running three times. That means I need to run today.

But I still don´t feel like it. So I only tell myself to start running. That´s my new goal. I tell myself that I can stop anytime should I feel too exhausted. But I want to start running.

To have the discipline to start running is easier than to have the discipline to start training for a 5-kilometers marathon.

And the fantastic thing is, that most people won´t stop their run, even if it should feel exhausted. Because now they have already started.

Now they tell themselves, “ok I can run a few hundred meters more and maybe another few meters. Great, now I can just as well finish my run.”

The most significant difficulty is always to bring an object into movement. Once it moves, it is increasingly more comfsortable to keep it moving and even to accelerate it.

This is just like that chain of X´s you make into your calendar for every day you did a habit. As you see that chain of X´s grow, you will work harder and harder not to break that streak.

So always try to get started. No matter how little your initial goal is, it will quickly help you to find the discipline to reach your ultimate goal.

4. Design your thoughts

Another helpful way to cultivate self-discipline is to design affirming thoughts. The Law of Attraction uses this method as well.

Always remember: Your thoughts create your actions!

So if you want to have more willpower, you need to think thoughts that match the self-disciplined self you want to be.

If you try to be disciplined enough to do that workout think:
“I love working out! I love to feel how my body gets stronger every single day! The time will pass quickly, I just know it! I can´t wait to start my training! ”

The more you think these positive thoughts, the more you are actually going to believe them. In result, it will become easier for you to be disciplined.

5. Do anything like you want to do everything

We tend to find excuses for why we don´t need to work hard today.

“I worked sooo hard yesterday, today I can cut some slack.”

“Oh, tomorrow is going to be really exhausting, I think I should just take it easy this afternoon.”

Of course, there are times, when it is justified and also needed to relax a bit. But whenever you are about to decide whether or not you should stay disciplined, think about the following:

“How you do anything is how you do everything!”

T. Harv Eker

It is incredibly easy to fall in the excuse trap. In the end, we will always find some kind of excuse why we don´t need to be disciplined today.

And the less you force yourself to be disciplined, the more difficult it will be to get that willpower back.

So be careful with your decisions! After all, your future is the sum of the choices you make each day!

6. Take some Time off and Reward yourself

---

“What gets rewarded, gets repeated.”

John E. Jones

After all, we humans are just mammals. And what do we give our pets after they behaved well? A treat.

So treat yourself for your discipline. This can be anything from having a dessert, to watching another episode, to buying yourself something beautiful.

But again, measure carefully. You don´t want to spoil yourself!

7. Forgive yourself and move on

We will not always meet our expectations. After all, we are often our harshest critic.

Whenever you have found yourself being not disciplined enough and slacking, you need to acknowledge that.

But after doing that, you need to let it go. There is nothing you can do about it anymore. The past is the past. All we ever really have is the present as Eckhart Tolle likes to say.

So try and make the best out of it by being disciplined now!

8. Don´t wait for motivation, create motivation!

One sentence that just screams a lack of self-discipline is the “I just don´t feel motivated to do that”-excuse.

Listen carefully: Motivation is NOT needed for Self-discipline!

That´s what self-discipline is all about! To push through although you do not feel motivated.

Nobody cares if you are motivated. What matters is if you are disciplined enough to get the job done.

However, if you are motivated, you do not need to be disciplined as much.

To use that knowledge to your advantage, you need to be able to create motivation and to self motivate you.

Figure out what gets your spirits up. Is it listening to Eminem? Maybe you need to watch some motivational YouTube videos. Or you merely need some motivational Pinterest quotes.

In that case, I recommend you to check out my Pinterest boards. I have a ton of motivational and inspirational quotes there.

Whatever it is, get yourself motivated. Maybe put up some motivational quotes around your house, where you will see them during your daily routine.

And if all should fail, you simply need to be disciplined.

Nobody ever got anywhere by just putting in the work whenever they felt motivated.

9. Challenge yourself

Self Discipline is a muscle! The more we use it, the stronger it gets.

So make it a habit to challenge yourself every day. It does not need to be an enormous challenges. Something small like forcing yourself to take a cold shower or brushing yout teeth with the non-dominant hand is sufficient.

Just keep training that muscle a little bit every day.

This way, you can slowly start to build stronger willpower, and it will be easier for you to use it if necessary.

---

What about you, Felicity Seekers? Are you disciplined?

Has a lack of willpower ever been an issue for you in any area of your life?
Tell us about it down below!