Quick guide to save more money…

Saving money can be an incredible feat for many people. Our lives are full of enticing clothes, cool gadgets and fancy cars. Many will be eager to own them, giving them the gratification and social status. However, when looking at savings or cashflows, you will find many of them are in debt and no savings at all. Many of my friends are like that, they own cars, wear branded luxury clothes, own several designers bags and even multiple colors of similar bags! And they have told me that they have no extra money for their saving accounts. To start saving, you will need to develop habits that will help you reach your financial goals.

Savings are not for people who are poor and had a hard time earning money. Look at the tycoons around the world and you will see many of them are actually super savers. I had two friends who are pretty wealthy, but they had different spending habits. One managed to get a good sum of money and bought himself a $250,000 BMW Z4 Roadster, and I asked him why. “I like sports car and I got it since I can afford it”. Around the same time, the other friend of mine got the same amount of money, but instead of spending it immediately, he invested it in something else. After a few years, he is driving a Lamborghini! “I liked the BMW Z4, but if I can wait for a while and leverage my cash abit, I can actually own Lamborghini in a few years time.” The best thing is he can still easily afford another BMW Z4 if he wanted to!

See the difference? Being wealthy and rich is not about earning big bucks, it is the wisdom of using your money well. Saving money is one of the first few steps to financial wisdom. Here are some ways you can learn from the super savers:

Delayed Gratification.

Super savers do not believe in buying something when they decided to. Things that cost a huge sum of money need careful planning and many will save up so that they can pay upfront and avoid interest charges. Delaying your purchases also give you time to “cool down” and consider whether you really need item or not.

Cut your expenses.

Reduce your expenses equals saving more money. There are many ways to reduce your expenses. So take some time and sit down to review through your monthly expenses. Find things that are you don’t really “need” and stop any expenses on such things. Spend only on essentials and turn your expenses into fruitful investments.

Create budgets.

Super savers are really good at setting up budgets for themselves. Start planning your budget by tracking expenses and incomes in a month and categorize them into logical categories like groceries, entertainment etc. Know how much to assign to and spend within the limits. Excess cash should go to the saving accounts and not to other budgets. Again, budgets have to be in fine details, so that you get the most of out it.

Research your purchases.

Don’t buy on first sight when you have plans to buy something. Always do some research, by going to several shopping malls or online and compare prices. Consider the quality and price that will suit your needs and last you for a long period of time. Such great deals will help you to cut away some cash for savings.

Set financial goals.

 Goal setting is a MUST for any successful individuals. You will not achieve anything if you don’t have specific goals. Super savers sets very detailed goals and work hard to achieve them.Start by eliminating your debts, set firm deadlines and work towards them.

Respect your savings account.

Your saving account is not your cash cow!  Don’t let it be something that you can raid it or empty it for some unnecessary purchase. If you are saving up for a house, you should not be using the funds to buy  a new car! Dedicate your savings to a particular purpose and develop some discipline on how you use the money.

 

Related Resources:

• The Richest Man in Babylon: George S. Clason's Bestselling Guide to Financial Success: Saving Money and Putting it to Work for You
• Awaken the Giant Within : How to Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Destiny!

 

    

Using the power of your subconscious mind…

It is an untapped potential of the human mind. We have yet to fully utilize the power of our brain. But today, we witness its overwhelming power by tapping into 1% of it… Learn how to harness the power of your subconscious today…

1. Autosuggestion
Reality distortion, a psychological technique that professionals uses. It it by emphasizing on the greatness of a certain object, using powerful adjectives that create a kind of distortion in your brain. Our subsconscious mind cannot distinguish the truth and the lies. If you repeat on it again and again, your sub-conscious mind will believe it it true!

2. Write out your dreams, your goals
Again, frequent “reminders” and repetitive reception of certain beliefs can empower your mind to do something. The untapped potential will energize you to work towards your dreams.

3. Dreamboarding
Have you heard of it? It is a graphical kind of representation of your dreams and goals.I bet you have done it before, using your dream cars as your wallpapers, pictures of your dream house, pasting them around your room and in your wallet. A proper dreamboard can be done through using magazine or online graphics, arrange them properly and printing them out. Place your dreamboard at a visible place that you will see everyday.

Create a dream board for yourself today. You will be amazed at the results!

Think and Grow Rich , elaborates on concepts of autosuggestion and harnessing your mind’s power. Exposing yourself to multiple resource of these concepts also reinforce your beliefs of achieving success. In fact you are using your subconscious mind right now!

Richmond
Dream Turners

Your guide to Goal Setting

Goal setting is essential if you want to realize your vision. A great plan comes with many milestones and every milestone is a goal. So by achieving all your goals, you simply turn your vision into reality! Here are 6 questions you have to ask yourself which will help you to gain more clarity on your vision and how to set your goals properly.

1. What is the most important thing in your life?

Is it personal development,health, financial or material achievements? Or family? Is it about having a great career? a lot of friends? Identifying your most important thing helps you to find focus and set goals based on your priorities.

2. S.M.A.R.T. ideology

Is your goal:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Timely

Set goals with great detail, because the more detail you have, the more clarity you gain and easier for you to plan.

3.Identify the Pain and Pleasure

If you can identify the pain of not achieving the goal and pleasure of achieving the goal, you can empower yourself by gaining vision of your future state. It gives you motivation for you achieve your goals.

4. What are your plans and resources you have to achieve your goal?

Having a clear vision will help you see and design your plan. Focus on questions with “Hows”. What are you going to do to reach your goal? Setting up a business? Through real estate? What are the steps needed to move closer to your goals. Your “How” is important but it is not as important as your “Why”, because once you know your “Why”, somehow you would be able to figure out your “How”.

Think about resources too, focus on people and skills, lists them out.What skillsets you have that you can leverage, list them down. Who are the people that can offer you advice or provide aids that help you to move closer to your goals, write them down.

5. What are the possible obstacles you will face?

Knowing what you can achieve may not be enough, it is less than 40% of your goal setting. Think about possible obstacles too. Think about what you can do when you face some challenges. It may be hard to identify them because you did not experience them before, try reading books and case studies on what others face and learn from there!

6. Lastly, how badly you want to achieve your goal?

There is a huge difference between wanting to achieve your goal and having a must to achieve. All of us want lots of things, dream cars, dream house, high paychecks or dozens of properties. But why do many of us don’t achieve it? Simple, just mere desires. You can settle for something else easily. Unless you make your goal a must, it is very likely you would never achieve it.

I hope this will shed some light for you on goal settings. There are many resources out there on goal setting. I bet you have experience it in school or at work before. But trust me, they are not as detailed as explained here. You have yet to feel the potential of it, so try out these questions and you will see your goals much clearer!

Most important thing to remember. Always write out your goals! Paste it on your walls, your ceilings or your desktop or iPhone wallpapers!

It will remind you on your goals that you have set!

 

Richmond

Founder, Dream Turners

Great plans come from Great Vision… Can you see clearly what it takes?

Most successes doesn't come from pure luck, in fact most of them are through careful planning and leveraging the opportunities to happen. Mark didn't make Facebook more than a million users overnight, Larry didn't make Google one of the best search engine ever. All of them have a humble beginning and a great plan.

Your plan truly determine the probability and level of success. It gives you clarity to make the correct decisions and drive towards success. Making wrong decisions either stall your progress or even destroy the entire plan. So planning is a critical step that you have to do it in order to succeed. Planning is an art, many learnt from their mistakes, which took them on long detours before they finally succeed. Other learn through following successful plans, which is a great idea, but always be ready to change according to the opportunities happening around you.

Before you can start planning, you need to know what's at the end of the road, things that you want to achieve. In short, Vision. Great plans come from great vision. Crystal clear vision can show you every step you need to make to succeed. Vague or vision with little details are almost useless, because you cannot plan effectively, ending up going in circles or wrong direction. A vision " Setting up a supermarket in my town" is too vague to give you good details to plan. "Setting up a 10,000 sq foot supermarket with products from 100 vendors in the downtown area in 2 years time" See the difference? This will guide you to plan appropriately. You will devise a plan on how to work with 100 vendors, and also search for potential rent space in downtown. Do you think it is easier to succeed than saying "Setting up a supermarket"? Yes it does!!

Vision is what you want to achieve and different levels of success will require a whole new vision and plan. A vision and plan of setting up a supermarket will be different from setting up a global chain of supermarket. You will also need to think about expansion and regional distributors, how to manage a chain of outlets etc.

So how high should you aim for success? Of course as high as possible! The higher you aim, the better your rewards from success! You shouldn't be saying "It's too difficult" or "I don't think I can do it". You already got a great vision and plan! You are almost halfway there, you are far better than the majority of them. Don’t settle for less, it limits your ability to grow. And if your big plan doesn’t turn out as well, you will still be far better than you used to be! A global chain may not work or fail to take off, but your plan is already good enough to sustain a regional chain of supermarkets, does it sound good too compared to nothing?

So always set a clear vision, only then you will see the goals you need to accomplish in order to succeed.  With these, you will be able to plan in great details, almost like a blueprint to success. There a lot great resources out there, but the hidden message of great vision and great plan is something that not many resources actually talk in depth to it. I hope you are enlightened by now. Here are some books that help you out on goal settings, proven methodologies and systematic approach to achieve your goals. I read many of such books, but it is really the hands-on, practical application of vision that make you realize that everything is possible. Nevertheless, these books are going to help you a lot, reducing your learning period to succeed,  so read them and apply them, you will be amazed. If you want to learn from success stories and analysis of their methodologies, i recommend Goal Setting: 13 Secrets of World Class Achievers, great resource! If you want more in depth knowledge on accelerated goal achievement, this is something you will be looking for, Goals!: How to Get Everything You Want -- Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible .