How to Escape the Rat Race

The main key to escaping the rat race is that your thought process determines how successful you become in life, including financially. This is why some lottery winners end up more in debt 5 years after they win than they were originally, and also why many millionaires could lose all the money they have and get it back within 5 years. If you want to change your financial circumstances long-term, it has to be from the inside-out.

Thinking like a wealthy person is not something that comes overnight. You have to work at it. If you want a great place to start, here are a few ideas that personally helped me:

1) Read Practical Financial and Business Books

These are not necessarily books you'll have suggested to you in high school or college, but they should be. A few authors to start with would be Dave Ramsey, Robert Kiyosaki, Dan Miller, John Maxwell, Napoleon Hill, and Og Mandino. In addition to this, it's helpful to know that millionaires read a lot more than the average adult-about 1 non-fiction book a month.

2) Develop a Plan

The majority of people out there who are living week-to-week and paycheck-to-paycheck are in that position because they don't have a long-term plan. Getting yourself out of debt (freeing up more of your money on a monthly basis) and building wealth does not just happen by accident. There are small changes and sacrifices you can make earlier in life that will pay off later, but you need to do it with focus and with purpose. Business books will not only show you how to make more money but to get more of your time back long-term, which is far more valuable.

3) Find Good Mentors

I can't stress the importance enough of having people in life that pull you forward instead of pull you down. You may find someone in your own career field that will help you learn, or it may be a group of people. What matters is that they challenge you in a good way and care about your future.

4) Do the Work

Success in life takes effort, and sometimes you end up getting pushed out of your comfort zone to really win in life. One of the biggest challenges I think is out there is this idea of the typical 40-hour work week and then people shut their mind down outside of that. Sometimes being successful just requires you to watch less TV and work on something outside your job that will help your future. Right now I work closer to 80 hours a week-40 for someone else and 40 for myself. The payoff to that is I'm doing what I love to do in both arenas and will have the ability to retiring younger compared to most people.

5) Do What You Enjoy

When you're doing something you don't like for the sake of money, it drains your energy and you're not as able to get as much done. When you find something in life that makes you look forward to getting up every day, in your mind it doesn't even seem like work. It may take you awhile to eventually get to that point, but it's worth pursuing.

I hope these tips have been helpful to you. Good luck and best wishes!