Pretty much everyone would like to be rich, right? It’s the trick in the question “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” Not many people would feel inclined to say “no, not me, I don’t like the idea of having lots of money.”
It’s a simple fact of life, that like it or not, success in business, and in general, is judged to a significant degree by money. It’s also the case that money is required for the everyday act of existing in the world. You need to buy food, pay the bills, put fuel in your car, and so on. And if you aren’t content with a purely practical existence, you’ll need money to participate in many of the uplifting pastimes and pursuit that give life much of its value.
Travelling to new places, taking your kids to Disneyland, even just camping somewhere out of the way and turning your back on civilisation for a while — all of these things will cost some money.
So, whether for the sake of social clout and recognition, or for the ability to reliably keep a roof over your head, and the heads of those you care about, or in order to open doors to interesting experiences; there are plenty of reasons why you might want to make a tidy fortune in life.
But while pretty much everyone, and certainly the majority of those with an entrepreneurial inclination, will want to get rich, it is, of course, easier said than done.
Here are some tips for making your fortune.
Find an industry or career where you can reasonably expect that a high degree of success will be rewarded by high-earnings
You can work excruciatingly hard in life, without ever enjoying a substantial degree of financial success. That’s because income doesn’t correlate directly with hard work, even if hard work is a prerequisite for success in any field.
By way of illustration, you could spend 12-hours a day, seven days a week, breaking rocks in the blazing sun. No one would say you weren’t working hard — working yourself ragged in fact — but you’d never get rich from doing the job, simply because of the nature of the job itself.
That’s an extreme example, but the same basic concept holds true in a broader sense, as well.
If you want to make your fortune, you need to find an industry or career where you can reasonably expect that a high degree of success will be rewarded by high-earnings.
Researching how to start a real estate business, for example, might provide you with the requisite insights to determine that a particular career path in real estate could reliably make you a lot of money.
But if you currently work in a run-of-the-mill office job, and the most senior figure in the building earns only slightly more than you, you’re likely not in the right place, if your ambition is to become wealthy.
Make sure that the career you’re pursuing is something you find meaningful, not just something that you think might make you rich
With all the talk of finding a career where high-earning is a feasible expectation down the line, you could be forgiven for thinking that the correct path is to be purely pragmatic in your career choice, and to think only of the material benefits of a given job.
That would, however, be a bad idea.
To earn your fortune, you don’t just need to be in the right line of work — you also need to be motivated, driven, and focused enough to grind away come rain or shine. While some especially gritty personalities might be able to do that indefinitely for a job they hate, the average person certainly won’t be.
To have the level of commitment, focus, and drive required to make a success of yourself in a demanding career, having a sense of higher meaning in your job is very important. If you feel that you’re contributing to the world in some meaningful way, or at least, that you can take pride in your work and not just view yourself as someone who’s obliged to do distasteful things for a living — you’ll be much better positioned to thrive and prosper down the years.
Adopt a complete-accountability mindset
Success guru Jack Canfield has noted in his writings that one of the key defining features of the most successful people in business, is that they have a mindset of complete accountability. That is, they assume that their actions are responsible, in some way, for essentially everything that happens to them.
On the one hand, this sounds clearly empowering. Enjoyed success in life? Pat yourself on the back and reflect on how your savvy and virtuous actions yielded results.
On the other hand, though, this concept can be extremely daunting for most people, because it also works the other way around. Been falling short of the mark for years? Guess what, you no longer have the luxury of pointing fingers at other people, or external circumstances, even if they were actively working against you. The buck stops with you, which means you have to own your undesirable position in life.
But when you adopt this total-accountability mindset, you also empower yourself, totally, to change your life. You begin to focus less on the things you can’t control, and more on the things you can control. This makes you naturally more proactive, creative, and daring. And all of those things increase your odds of success.
Get organised like you’ve never been before
Making your fortune requires a great amount of attention to detail. Organisation is key to any significant level of success in the business world, and especially if you’ve struggled with being an organised person in the past, you really need to make a point of getting organised like never before.
There are many effective systems out there for identifying sticking points in your routine, and collecting and organising all of your assorted tasks, projects, and daily To-Dos.
David Allen’s world-renowned “Getting Things Done” system is perhaps the most well-known organisation method going, and by all accounts, it’s proved life-changing for a substantial number of high-flying corporate professionals, and ordinary members of society, alike.
Whatever system you choose to use, though, the key thing is that you’re able to get a clear overview of the various tasks you could be doing at any given moment, and from there, can identify and act on the most important tasks.
Identify a clear vision of where you want to be in a few years, and practice affirmations to guide you towards success
They say that “seeing is believing”, and if you listen to some of the most successful people in the world, they’ll tell you that the ability to set a clear intention, visualise a perfect outcome, and continue to reinforce the idea of success in their minds, has been instrumental in terms of their eventual success.
The idea of visualisation and affirmations is kind of New Age on the face of it, and this alone can put some people off. But a variety of success icons ranging from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Richard Branson and Charles Duhigg have apparently used these practices, in one form or another, to secure success in life.
Self-belief is very important when you’re seeking your fortune. Imagine what your perfect life and perfect job look like. Then practice routine visualisation and affirmation exercises in order to keep reinforcing your belief in your eventual success.
If nothing else, this will help to keep you motivated and moving forward during difficult times.
Michelle Deery is a content writer for 
