5 Habits That Helped Turn Ordinary People

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5 habits that helped turn ordinary people into

self-made millionaires
Thomas C. Corley, Credit.com

Sep. 1, 2015, 1:55 PM
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106,268
1
Flickr/BenOrdinary people can earn their fortunes with the right habits.
Of all of your daily activities, 40% of them are habits, according to the Society for Personality and
Social Psychology. This means 40% of the time you're on auto-pilot, every day.
Habits save the brain work and conserve brain fuel. There is very little processing power involved
with respect to habits.
So what does that have to do with being rich? I studied 177 self-made millionaires and uncovered
certain unique good habits that made it possible for them to automatically process success on a
daily basis.
Here are five of the top habits of self-made millionaires that helped them accumulate an average of
$7.4 million in 12 years.
1. They set good goals vs. bad goals.

You hardly ever hear anyone talk about goals in a negative context. Goals are almost always
perceived to be good. But there are goals that add no real value to your life when achieved yet
consume valuable resources. So how do you know when a goal is good or bad?
Good goals create long-term benefits and long-term happiness when achieved. They allow you to
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grow as an individual and alter your behavior in a positive way. Good goals get you from point A
to point B. Point B being a better place, such as more wealth, a better job, higher income, better
school system for your kids, etc.
An example of a good goal would be to lose 20 pounds. Setting a weight-loss goal often involves a
daily regimen of exercise, healthy eating and encourages a healthy lifestyle. Good health results
from exercising and eating right. It may also motivate you to moderate your consumption of
alcohol or to quit smoking. When the weight eventually comes off you enjoy the compliments, feel
healthier and all of this creates lasting happiness.
Bad goals create short-term happiness and no long-term benefits when achieved. An example of a
bad goal might be to own a Ferrari, particularly if it is not within your means. In that case, in order
to own a Ferrari, you must make more money. Making more money will likely involve either more
work or taking excessive financial risk (for example, taking out a loan you may not be able to
afford or, say, gambling, if that's your tendency).
There's a cost-benefit to working more you invest time that you will never recoup. Don't
misunderstand me here. Working more to make more money can be a good thing. But where the
goal goes south is when you then use that money to buy stuff, like a Ferrari, that is financially out
of your reach and perhaps not a necessity.
The happiness you derive from owning more or better stuff fades over time, since happiness
derived from buying stuff is typically short-term. You will eventually revert back to your genetic
happiness baseline and, after a few weeks, the Ferrari will no longer create lasting happiness. The
lost time with the family, however, can never be recouped.
If the goal, instead, was to judiciously invest that extra money you earned into a calculated risk,
such as a side business, an investment or a vacation home that would enable you to spend more
time with your family, then it may shifts the "work more/earn more" goal into a good goal.
Ideally, achieving a goal will create long-term benefits: a stronger business, more time with the
family, more personal growth, financial independence, improved health, etc.
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Flickr / Katrine
ThielkeThey don't waste time.
2. They avoid time-wasters.

Sixty-seven percent of wealthy people watch less than an hour of TV a day and 63% spend less
than an hour a day on the Internet, unless it is job-related. They spend their free time instead
engaged in self-improvement, networking, volunteering, working side jobs or side businesses, or
pursuing some goal or dream that will lead to financial rewards down the road.
Matthew
Eisman / Stringer / Getty ImagesWealthy people dream big.
3. They dream-set before they goal-set.

You must Dream-Set before you Goal-Set. Dream-Setting provides you with the destination; GoalSetting is the transportation to get you to your destination. Dreams represent a vision of some
future, ideal state or reality. Dreams are the springboard for goals. You can't achieve goals that are
actually dreams in disguise.
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Most who set goals, mistake a dream for a goal, and that is why most fail to achieve their goals.
For example, making an additional $100,000 a year is a dream, not a goal. Becoming an Olympic
athlete is a dream, not a goal. Owning a house on the beach is a dream, not a goal (unless you have
the money already).
Dream-Setting is the act of clearly defining a dream. It's a two-step process:
1. Ask yourself what you want your ideal life to be 10, 15 or 20 years out. Then write down
every detail of your ideal future life. Be very specific in the details: the income you earn, the
house you live in, the boat you own, the car you drive, the money you've accumulated, etc.
2. Using this detailed description of your ideal future life, make a bullet-point list of each one
of the details that represent your ideal life. These would be the income you earn, the house
you live in, the boat your own, etc. These details represent your wishes or dreams.
Goal-Setting requires you to build goals around each one of your wishes or dreams. In order to
build goals around each wish or dream you need to ask yourself two questions:
1. What would I need to do, what activities would I need to engage in, in order for each wish or
dream to come true?
2. Can I perform those activities?
If the answer to Question #2 is yes, then those activities represent your goals. Goals are only goals
when they involve physical action and you have the capability to successfully take action.
Let's summarize this Dream-Setting / Goal-Setting process:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Paint a picture with words of your ideal life.

Define each wish or dream that must be realized in order to have your ideal future life.
Establish specific goals around each one of your wishes or dreams.
Take action. Pursue and achieve each of the specific goals that will make each wish or dream
come true.
You then repeat this process for every other wish or dream. When you realize each one of your
wishes or dreams, your ideal future life will then become your actual real life.
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Jeff J Mitchell
/ Getty ImagesWealthy people don't quit on their dreams.
4. They never quit on a dream.

Self-made millionaires are persistent. They never quit on their dream. They would rather go down
with the ship than quit. Twenty-seven percent of the self-made millionaires in my study failed at
least once in business. And then they picked themselves up and went on to try again. They
persisted. Persistence requires doing certain things every day that move you forward in achieving
your goals or life dream. Persistence makes you unstoppable. No obstacle, mistake or momentary
failure can stop you from moving forward if you keep at it.
These millionaires learned to pivot and change course, growing in the process. Persistence allowed
them to learn what didn't work and continuously experiment, until they found what did work.
Persistence is the single greatest contributor to manifesting good luck. Those who persist,
eventually get lucky. Some unintended consequence emerges, something unexpected and
unanticipated happens to those who persist.
Sometimes, those closest to you will urge you on and encourage you. But more often, those closest
to you, those directly impacted by the obstacles, mistakes and failures that are part of the success
journey, will try to stop you from persisting. It takes superhuman effort to continue to pursue
success when there are so many forces fighting you. That's what makes successful people so
special and also, so rare. If you want to be successful in life, you must persist in the face of
unrelenting adversity.
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Charlie
Crowhurst / Stringer / Getty ImagesRich people don't pull all their eggs in one basket.
5. They create multiple streams of income.

Self-made millionaires do not rely on one singular source of income. They develop multiple
streams. Three seemed to be the magic number in my study. Sixty-five percent had three or more
streams of income that they created over time. Diversifying your sources of income allows you to
weather the economic downturns that always occur in life.
If you put "one pole in one pond," when that single income stream is negatively impacted in some
way, you can suffer financially. Conversely, having "several poles in several ponds" allows you to
draw income from other sources when one source is temporarily impaired.
Some of the additional streams might include: real estate rentals (each rental unit = a stream of
income), REITs (each one = a stream of income), tenants-in-common real estate investments (each
one = a stream of income), triple net leases, stock market investments, annuities (each one = a
stream of income), seasonal real estate rentals (beach rentals, ski rentals, lakefront rentals), private
equity investments, part ownership in a side businesses (each one = a stream of income), financing
investments, ancillary products or services and royalties (patents, books, oil, timber, etc.).
Remember, this study followed ordinary people who built their wealth over a period of time. So it
takes work, determination and establishing the habits that will help get you there. These are only a
few examples of the many good habits that support wealth-building, but they're a good place to
start.
This story is an Op/Ed contribution to Credit.com and does not necessarily represent the views of
the company or its partners.
More from Credit.com

How to Retrain Your Brain to Cut Debt & Build Wealth
18/9/15, 6:36 !"

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Is Your Credit Score Better Than Average?

Can You Get a Credit Card With Fair Credit?
Read the original article on Credit.com. Copyright 2015. Follow Credit.com on Twitter.
SEE ALSO: A self-made millionaire who studied 1,200 wealthy people found
one thought pattern they all tend to avoid
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