I have witnessed my ability to envision my wealth as one of the three factors determining my financial well-being. If you want to find out about the other two factors, refer to the article “Three factors for Financial Wellbeing.” How wealthy do you envision to be in your life? If you either enjoy or hesitate to dream of being wealthy, this topic might be of interest to you. Let’s explore more.
My vision of wealth:
My vision of life often is inspired from my favourite pastime, day-dreaming! I dreamt of flying on aeroplanes often to many countries in a day for business! I would wear business suits and in business meetings all day. As a child, I dreamt about hosting dinner parties at my home with fancy crockeries made from glass and ceramic! I fantasized about having a big fridge and finding big chocolate bars when I opened it!
In today’s standards, my dreams could be described as tacky at worst and mediocre at best! Yet I vividly remember the times, when most people around me would find these dreams audacious and crazy, especially for girls.
These were the images of the lifestyle I bought into, from the media. Mostly I kept my thoughts to myself with fear of being judged as ridiculous, extravagant, and outrightly delusional!
My dreams were my secret portal of inspiration, entertainment, and amusement! What do you expect in an era without Youtube or Netflix to feed my appetite for fantasy?! In fact, I prefer that era where I could make my own stories and dreams in my mind rather than being completely lost in someone else’s fantasy.
Dreams powered my vision:
I now realise, my dreams fueled my vision, added textures to my experiences, enhanced flavours of my indulgences, and multiplied the possibilities of my life! If I had dreamt differently, I believe my vision would have changed, and my choices would have been different. Therefore I would be living a different life.
I am fascinated to reflect just how strong my dreams influenced my vision. My vision for my financial wellness started with my dream of a good lifestyle that was far from the standards I was living. To me, that didn’t mean it had to end as a dream! While most people are masters of dreaming, many do not seem to progress beyond the dreaming state. So how could you take it further?
If you can dream it
You can do it!
Dreams to Vision to Goals:
To initiate my thoughts into reality, I began to translate my vision into a concrete wealth goal. There is no right or wrong goal in my view, as long as it genuinely nourishes your being. Here are some examples of wealth goals:
- Owning a nice house for an enjoyable living
- Owning a nice car for a pleasurable drive
- Having a steady passive income stream to become financially independent
- Living the desired lifestyle after retirement/early retirement
- Providing quality health care for self and loved ones
- Providing quality education for self and loved ones
- Experiencing richness of experiences with sight, smell, taste, sound, and touch
- Traveling the world to explore different perspectives
- Contributing to a collective cause that benefits the community
My dreams, visions, and goals also grew up with me as I evolved as a person and gave me the direction of my life journey. If you are interested to learn more on the direction for life, refer to the article “Where am I heading”
I grew up in a family with frugality both as a principle and way of life. I quickly learned to be intolerant of wastage of any sort and taking care that every penny spent had real value. However, when I am stuck in the frugal mindset, it is easy to ignore the bigger picture and judge some expenses as “too much”.
It was my vision and wealth goals, that helped me to be expansive rather than constraining myself. So I could balance between what I consider necessary spending and unnecesary spending. This diligence helped me to attain my wealth goals.
Let me give you an example. After I read Robert Kiyosaki’s book Rich Dad and Poor Dad, one of my goals were to create a passive income stream. That is aiming to generate income without me needing to work for it.
In other words, getting my money to work for me. Rental income, Interest income, dividends, business returns, Income from Intellectual property are all examples of passive income.
When I have a goal to generate a certain amount of monthly income in this category, I need to employ professionals in the respective field. Real estate agents, bankers, and fund managers help me offer more choices to consider and decide.
Although they cost money, when I believe it would create possibilities for income streams, then in my view, it is worth spending. Hiring experts significantly save my time and energy, which allows me to occupy in other productive ways.
It is also a good idea to invest time, energy, and money to equip with new skills that allow prudent risk-taking and confident financial decisions. I spend money on courses that teach me a variety of things, such as value-investing to learning to use new technology to enhancing my spiritual knowledge.
To sum it up, whatever transformation I sign up for, I keep nurturing my abundance thinking mindset in the background. (Stay tuned for the next article on wealth mindsets!)
Have your dreams reached the stage of defining wealth goals in your life? If not, do it now! The sooner you write it down and focus on achieving it, the closer you get to your dream life!!
Your Reflections:
- Financially speaking, how well do you feel? How regularly do you check it?
- Do you dare to dream big?
- What is your vision on your wealth and financial well-being?
- Do you have a list of financial goals that you keep track of progress?
- Do you assign timelines to your goals? Are they specific and practical?
- Were there instances in the past when you could not meet a financial goal? Why?
