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How To Achieve Financial Freedom In Less Than 10 Years
Photo Credit 401 (K) 2012.
Before blowing out the candles on my 20th birthday, I made a promise to myself. Most people believing in making wishes on your birthday, but I believe in setting goals.
Goals require you to take action while wishes just hope for the best. I set a goal to achieve financial freedom before my 25th birthday. That gave me exactly 5 years to achieve financial freedom no matter what.
I’ve seen far too many times how money has torn up relationships and restricted people from doing what they want that I didn’t want to live my life that way. Thus, I set a big goal without much direction on how I would achieve this.
Fast-forward to today (8 months later) and I still have not achieved financial freedom, but I’ve made quite a bit of progress towards my goal. Since I haven’t achieved my goal yet, I don’t consider this guide a full-proof way to achieve financial freedom.
However, I do feel that if you listen to what I have to share from my experiences and what I have learned, you will dramatically increase your chances of achieving financial freedom in less than 10 years.
In this blog article, I will share a comprehensive guide on how to achieve financial freedom in less than 10 years:
1. Turn Yourself Into A Brand
Early on as an entrepreneur, I hid behind my businesses. There was no Jeet Banerjee, it was all JB Media Force or StatFuse. After selling my first company, I quickly realized that all the hard work I had put in was instantly wiped out.
Even though I made some money from the transaction, I lost a lot more than I had expected. From that experience, I learned that you must create a brand out of yourself. People buy from people, not from business entities.
It is crucial to turn yourself into a catalyst for your projects. No matter what happens in your businesses, your name will carry on forever.
2. Diversify Quickly
A lot of people say that focus is extremely crucial to success, but I believe you can be focused on numerous things at the same time. For me, I saw how hard recessions hit people because they had all their eggs in one basket.
You never know what can happen. Don’t count on one business or opportunity. Create numerous opportunities for yourself so that if one does hit a snag, you’re not completely screwed.
3. Stop Saving, Start Investing
If you make money, your natural reaction is to probably stuff it under your mattress or in your bank account. However, I learned that saving your money does absolutely nothing.
Instead, create a savings account that can protect you for a few months, but not forever. It may be risky, but the only real way to create massive wealth is to invest as much money as you can.
If you want to be financially free in less than 10 years, you have to diversify your investments. Find different things that you’re passionate about that don’t require a ton of time and invest in them.
I’ve lost quite a bit of money from investing in different things but it’s all part of the learning experience. You have to try and fail before you really know what works and doesn’t work.
4. Stop Exchanging Time For Money
I love building businesses online because I don’t have to exchange time for money. Investments are even better because I can invest even less time to make a good chunk of money.
If you have to directly trade your time for dollars, you will never be able to achieve financial freedom. Your money, investments, and time should be working for you.
By creating passive income streams, you have the ability to continuously build new things that can increase the amount of money you make. It’s trouble the moment your income stops growing because you don’t have enough time.
5. Learn To Say No
In order to really obtain financial freedom, you need to learn how to master your time. The biggest mistake I made early on was saying yes to every opportunity that came by.
I never weighed the long-term effects that each of these Yes’s had and I quickly found out that many of these decisions were hurting me instead of helping me. Think about each opportunity that comes by and see how much time you are trading in exchange for it.
From there, think about what the potential ROI is and divide by the amount of time you are spending. You should get a value that represents how much you are making per hour/per month.
Time / Potential Return On Investment = $$$$$/Hour or Month
If that number is lower than how much money you need to be making daily in order to achieve financial freedom in 5-10 years, you should pass on the opportunity.
6. Commit To Your Goals/Success
When I made myself this promise to achieve financial freedom on my 20th birthday, there was no going back. I convinced myself that this was going to happen regardless of how much effort it took.
If you set a goal or commitment to achieve financial freedom, make sure you love what you’re doing and are willing to see it through until the end. The word ‘quit’ should not exist in your vocabulary once you make this vow.
7. Educate Yourself
The first thing I knew I had to do was to create a plan. Even though my plan isn’t finished, I have a foundation. I was able to develop this foundation by simple studying the secrets of self-made millionaires.
Whether you need to educate yourself on your market or other successful people, constantly read and learn about what others are doing. Invest in your own education because that will be key to long-term growth.
8. Network Like Hell
It only takes one person to change your life forever. I’ve always heard the statement, “Business is all about who you know.”
While that isn’t 100% true, it can definitely have a huge impact on your success. The more people you know, the more potential doors you can open. In order to achieve financial freedom, you want to constantly network with people and develop positive relationships that may be helpful in the future.
9. Take Calculated Risks
Most people who have achieved financial freedom will tell you that they took some gamble that paid off big for them. I don’t recommend taking any risk, I recommend taking a calculated risk.
Life is all about playing the odds in your favor. Figure out the ROI in every risk and compare it to the possibility of failure. If you find out an investment has a 50% chance to fail but can make 3x the original investment, it’s a risk but calculations show it’s worthwhile.
10. Hard Work Will Compensate Your Mistakes
At the end of the day, hard work prevails over everything else. The stupidest people in the world can make a ton of money just because they work harder than others.
It’s true that talent alone cannot get you to the top. It’s okay to make mistakes and hit roadblocks (because everyone does), but hard work will eventually get you where you need to be. When you commit to a goal as large as this, you need to be working your ass off.
11. Spend Less Than You Earn
This is a no-brainer. You’re not trying to go bankrupt in the next 10 years, you’re trying to make enough money to live the rest of your life on.
If you start seeing a good chunk of money in, this isn’t a sign that you should start spending and upgrading your life. Live your life as you would if you were broke and stick to your plan. Your plan has worked thus far and continue focusing on it until you have achieved your end goal.
12. Patience Pays
Lastly, you have to be patient. When I set that goal on my 20th birthday, I wanted to achieve financial freedom right away!
However, my mentors quickly taught me that great plans take a long time to unravel. As long as you are consistent and stick to your plan, you will eventually get where you want to be. Don’t let failures, mistakes, and slow progress derail you from your big plans.
Conclusion
Achieving financial freedom is an amazing goal that everyone should set for themselves. In this article, I shared 12 tips on how you can be financially free in less than 10 years.
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Sam Alsh
Hey Jeet, I liked your post. It’s content is wise and inspirational, to come across someone who has similar interests and motivation is exciting. I’d like to network, hit me up on s.alsh@outlook.com.
Cheers, Sam