Willie Long III.com

Many people become excited about their new goals. They say, “If you fail to plan you plan to fail!” Their intentions are great, but many times they fail to keep this energy and motivation going. The results are minimal if any at all. So what happened?

You have to know where you are before you can decide where you are going.

Let’s look at it this way. What is the first thing you do when you are lost in the mall? My guess would be to look for a mall map. Once you start looking at the mall map, you will need to find the “You are here” icon. This way you have a relative location of where you are and where you need to be.

In order to figure out where you are, let’s first take a look at your current income. Find out all of your income for a month and add it together. This includes earned income from your job, investment/portfolio income, child support, etc. When you are adding your earned income from a job, use the amount before taxes. We will need to subtract your taxes paid each month in the next step.

The next step, and sometimes the most revealing process, is to calculate your expenses. This is where you will add the total amount of taxes withheld from your paycheck every month. Don’t leave out anything! This step usually includes, cell phone bill, rent/mortgage, electricity, water, telephone, cable tv, car note, home insurance, health insurance, car insurance, child support payments, gas, food, clothes, tithes, etc.

Now, take your expenses and subtract them from your monthly income. If you are spending more than you earn each month, we have a serious problem. If you are almost breaking even or you barely have enough to buy a happy meal at the end of the month, you are living paycheck to paycheck which is also a problem. If you have enough money to invest or save at the end of the month, then you are on the right track. If you don’t evaluate this, it won’t matter how much money you make from your new idea. You will continue the same habits and poor mentality of spending more than you earn or “make more spend more”. This is why many people who win the lottery end up broke.

Let’s continue to lay our foundation. If you haven’t pulled your credit report within a year, you are entitled to view it for free from each of the three credit bureaus (Equifax, Transunion, Experian). This may not include the FICO score, but it’s only a couple of dollars from each bureau. If you pull your own report, your credit score won’t go down so don’t be afraid.

So, what are your skills, abilities, and education? Do you have a college degree? What is your work experience? What do you like to do the most? What resources do you have available(savings, home equity, cash, unused credit cards, etc.) All of this is very important and really opens your eyes to where you are in life. You may find out that you have a degree, you are making “good” money, but you have no resources available to you and you’re living check to check. Don’t be depressed, this is all a part of the healing process. Although you may be unemployed or have picked up a few felonies along the way doesn’t mean you are less capable of becoming successful either. There are plenty of people who come to the United States without a social security number, work experience, or knowledge of the native language and become financially independent. Which brings me to the final topic…

Why do you want to be successful? This is the most important step in this process. If you want to be successful so you can “outshine” the next man or woman, you will be crippling yourself. This way of thought will have you jumping from one thing to the next with no sense of direction. Your mission statement in life must be strong enough to push you through the tough times and keep the excitement flowing despite any potential setbacks. Bad relationships, poor childhood, unemployment, prison, disease, death of a loved one, divorce, being broke, not having enough time, are all things that a strong mission statement can conquer. Find out the real reason why you want to be successful, work toward that goal, and the rest will fall into place.

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