Strengthen your foundations

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You can't build the tallest building with a foundation made of sticks.  The foundation is you. Your experiences (good and bad), knowledge, skills, talents and heart are the materials for your foundation.

You know what your success is but how do you achieve it? Its defintely not easy but thats the good thing. The challenge will allow you to learn who you really are and what you are capable of. It will make you truly appreciate life more. It will make you stronger. You can't build the tallest building with a foundation made of sticks.  The foundation is you. Your experiences (good and bad), knowledge, skills, talents and heart are the materials for your foundation. To reach the sky, you need a solid foundation made of the strongest and toughest materials.  How you build depends on you. What are you doing to strengthen your foundation? Spend time to improve, educate and develop yourself and you will have a great start to achieving anything in life. Dream big and build big.

Many people will be familiar with the famous Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I think this is a great starting point. You need to meet your basic needs first before you can go on to do great things. You can't skip steps and there are no short cuts. Instead of building yourself up, you will find youself spending too much time and energy going back and forth trying to get things right. Get it right from the start, if its not right then make it right first before moving up.

To build my foundation, I first had to learn about myself. Hence I had to define what I want in life. What is my success? 10 years ago I picked up 'Building Wealth Story by Story' by Jan Somers. It contained real life stories of how people achieved financial independence. They were able to do many other things in life and be in control of how they balanced their life. From then on I set out to understand money and control money before it can control me. I don't want to wait until the retirement age of 67 to start enjoying life. I don't want my life to depend on government payments which may not even exist by the time I get to retirement.

Having a strong financial foundation is a great start because you will meet your physiological and safety needs. You can save energy for continually building yourself up. To get a strong foundation I set myself short term, medium term and long term goals spanning a period of 20 years.

​Short term
• Focus on my studies and future career so I can have good financial security.
• Maximise my opportunities by doing the best I can at everything I do.
• Educate myself about finance and investments.

Medium term
• Continue to educate myself
• Build multiple income streams through investment assets. Work hard for the money but let the money work even harder for you.
• Continue to work hard
• Get married
• Start a family
• Get our dream home

​Long term
• Semi financially free by 35
• Financially free by 40

Sounds impossible right? Remember it is a long term 20 year goal. Don't expect to achieve it over night. Don't let anyone stop you from dreaming big. I am currently 10 years into my goals and have accomplished all that I set out to do so far.

Define your success, strengthen your foundation then build your skyscrapper. The sky is not the limit. Remember to dream big and build big.

Stay tuned on my next blog where you will learn my back story and why I always aim to make the most of every second in life. If you enjoy reading this blog and found it helpful, please share it so other people can benefit from it as well. Leave me a comment or share your story. :)

Book recommendation:
Building Wealth - Story by Story by Jan Somers
www.bookdepository.com/book/9780958567206/?a_aid=1666
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