Financial freedom seems impossible, where do I start?

Today’s question comes from Rosie. She asks:

“Where the F do I begin?! I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad a few months back and have been procrastinating ever since because I didn’t know where to get started. My ultimate goal is financial freedom but it seems nigh on impossible right now (I’m a student, undecided if I should carry on my course, no job, heavily relying on partner’s income). That there is a load of excuses, I know. I’ve been scouring the internet for people like you to look where to start. I intend to make a plan!”

You need to focus on your career before you focus on financial freedom. And that means choosing a career where the starting pay is good and growing.

Because when you choose a career where you can earn a lot of money then financial freedom will be easier. I’m not saying you can’t become financially free if you don’t earn a lot of money but it takes more time.

And this is where people tell me they don’t want a career that’s all about the money. They want a career that they’re passionate about and doing meaningful work.

But here’s the thing. People don’t get paid to do meaningful work because people will do meaningful work for free. People get paid to do a job.

If you need to do meaningful work there’s 16 hours in a day. You can do a job for 8 hours and then you have 8 hours you can spend doing whatever is meaningful to you.

Okay. So you picked a career where the pay is good and growing. Now you need to focus on building your skillset and specializing because this is how you become more valuable in your field and when you’re more valuable in your field you earn more money.

And now that you have a career path where you’re going to earn good money you can start focusing on financial freedom. This is when you start figuring out what financial freedom means to you.

Because being financially free means different things to different people. When I’m coaching clients and I ask them what their goal is they might tell me something like, “I want a $1 million.”

And then I ask them why they want $1 million and they say they want to buy a new car, and update their kitchen, and buy a boat, and travel.

So I break this down and tell them a new car is $30,000, a kitchen $25,000, a boat $25,000, and vacations $10,000. Suddenly they don’t need $1 million anymore they only need $100,000.

They’re saying they want $1 million because they think they want to spend $1 million. And what I’m trying to get them to see is they probably don’t need as much as they think they do, and what they really want is freedom.

Because freedom is having $1 million generating $40,000 a year in passive income so you don’t have to work until you’re so old and sick you can’t work anymore. It’s about having options while you’re still young, like the ability to walk away from a 9-5 job where you only get two or three weeks off a year.

So you need to figure out what financial freedom means to you and then put a number on it. At this point it’s okay to dream big and say you want something like $1 million. That’s a good goal.

But if you know you’ll give up on a big goal like $1 million because it seems impossible then trick yourself into forgetting about it and set a small goal like $1,000. Why? Because setting small goals will lead you to the big goal.

So you’re setting a small goal for $1,000 and achieving it. Then you’re setting a small goal for $5,000 and achieving it. Then you’re setting a small goal for $25,000 and achieving it. And so on.

And what happens is it all becomes relative. Because going from $1,000 to $5,000 is the same factor as going from $5,000 to $25,000.

This is how it works. And one day you look back and see how far you’ve come and I want you to pause and be proud of what you achieved. Because this will give you the confidence to know how far you can go, and that financial freedom isn’t impossible.