Rich or Wealthy: What’s More Important?

Getting rich has become everyone’s dream—and why shouldn’t it be? It enables you to buy things for yourself and your loved ones so that all your needs and wants are taken care of.

Being rich can ensure you have excellent health and aged care, open opportunities to hone your personal and professional skills, and allow you to have financial freedom and security. Becoming rich is doable as long as you’re motivated in achieving your goals, be it in life, business, or finances.

But if you want to take it to the next level, you should also aim to become wealthy.

While money is definitely the primary tool you can use to realise your dreams, it shouldn’t be the be-all-end-all goal of your life. Being wealthy is more than just having money. It gives you the freedom to choose what you want to do, how to spend your time, and who to be with in your circle of family and friends.

It’s not enough to have savings in your bank account. In fact, it can be detrimental to you because of the inflation rate. Over time, your money will lose value, which means that your cash will be worth less in a few decades than when you started saving it.

For you to become wealthy, you need to let go of money beliefs that may be holding you back and start thinking of how you can achieve your goals and financial freedom.

The difference between being rich and wealthy

Both terms are often used interchangeably, but there’s a key difference between being rich and being wealthy: Their sustainability of wealth.

A rich person might have money for a short period of time. They may have inherited the money or they may have earned it in a high-income profession for many years. They can have a nice car, live in an amazing neighbourhood, and enjoy a luxurious lifestyle—until the money’s gone and they have to either earn it all again or end up with nothing..

A wealthy person no longer has to worry about money because they’ve unlocked ways to accumulate true wealth. They know that money doesn’t necessarily make them happy and that accomplishing their goals and being successful in their endeavours is what gives them true satisfaction

You can be wealthy without having money. If your first reaction to that statement is disbelief or indignation, consider reflecting on your relationship with money and how it defines the way you think, feel, and act.

To be wealthy, you need to have the right mindset and plan for the long-term future, rather than just living in the moment.

How to become wealthy

Here are three tips to help you get started to building long-lasting wealth that can help you make your vision into a reality.

1. Know what you want to achieve

Establishing short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals will help identify what you’re willing to work hard for.

Short-term goals can include establishing a budget, creating an emergency fund, or even paying off credit cards. This type of goal can pave the way to making more successful, long-term financial plans in the future.

Once you’re ready, you can step it up with mid-term goals such as getting life insurance and healthcare. This is the transition phase as you start focusing on your bigger visions for life. Retirement savings, financial freedom, multigenerational wealth are all considered long-term goals.

Without a goal in mind, you’re more likely to spend money on things that won’t actually give you returns in the long run. If you don’t understand your “why” in life, it becomes much harder to grow even when you do have money.

Knowing your “why” will also keep you motivated and focused as you steadily work towards your goals. When you can visualise what you want for the future, the direction to getting there becomes clearer and much more exciting.

2. Do the one thing that will make your life easier

If you could only do one thing for the day that would give you the most return for your time and effort, what would it be?

The answer might come to you instantly or after you’ve had more time to think about it. Either way, knowing the answer can ensure that you consistently include it in your daily to-do list and that you can accomplish it.

This can be difficult if your day-to-day is always packed with work projects, home errands, and even resolving unexpected situations (either in your professional or personal life). That’s why it’s incredibly important that you know how to manage your time.

Time is a precious, limited resource and it’s equally valuable as money. Management and entrepreneurship professor Erich Dierdorff mentions in his article, “Time Management Is About More Than Life Hacks” for Harvard Business Review that you need to develop specific skills and not just “life hacks” to better manage your time These skills include:

• Awareness –  Being realistic about the time you have each day because you know that it’s a limited resource.
• Arrangement – Organising your goals, schedules, and tasks to productively use time.
• Adaptation – Tracking your use of time while accomplishing activities, including interruptions or changes in priorities.

Dierdorff goes on to say that most people only know how to plan and schedule (i.e. arrangement skills), which contributes to their failure in productively managing their time because two-thirds of the skills they need aren’t prioritised.

Honing your awareness skills reduces the temptation to procrastinate because you’re conscious of how much time you have in a day to accomplish tasks. Utilising your adaptation skills enables you to prioritise activities and tasks more effectively. Once you become a better time manager, you can focus on doing work that adds value to your life and is a good return on investment.

3. Stay committed

Becoming wealthy is a long journey that will definitely have highs and lows. But being disciplined will bring you a long way.

When you’re in one of those lows, it can be tempting to fall into the trap of get-rich-quick-schemes that never work. But the only way to become a millionaire in a short span of time is if you win a lottery or you suddenly inherit money from a long-lost relative. Even then, this sudden influx of money isn’t sustainable if you don’t know how to build true wealth.

So, instead of chasing another fruitless scheme, focus on putting in the effort, time, and hard work to see something change or improve.

You can become wealthy as long as you’re committed to the goals you’ve set out for yourself. By assessing how much you want to accomplish, you can think of ways to stay motivated in realising your lifelong dreams.

If you have questions about becoming wealthy and how to stay on track in achieving your goals, book a call with us.