To manage your assets, you must develop a long-life mindset and habits that match that mindset. In life, there are tangible and intangible assets. Tangible ones are the ones most people think of with an attached financial value. Meanwhile, the intangible ones are the ones that have an impact on your life but have no monetary value, such as your abilities, community and health.
It requires discipline to balance these things. Throughout your life, their importance will change as you go through different stages. As a child, your focus was probably more on your community than the resale value of your tricycle.
The 100-year life explains the importance of these assets throughout life stages and illustrates how imbalance impacts your life. Suppose you spend too much time focused on one type of asset. The lack of attention to the other types may cause hardships down the road as your unsustainable habits start to compound.
Becoming rich
Becoming rich is an honourable goal; most of us would be happy with more money. However, as The Notorious B.I.G put it:
“Mo money, mo problems”
Rather than always seeking more earnings, pay attention to where your money is going and build a life you can sustain with your income. Learning to appreciate what you have can help change your spending habits.
Appreciation is a discipline; it is something that must be practiced. You can practice it by meditating, keeping a gratitude journal or recalling things you are grateful for before bed. These practices will help you to appreciate your life, thus decreasing your cravings for more.
Our brains are hardwired to always crave more; it is what I describe as the fallacy of consumerism. Therefore, it requires practice and dedication to be satisfied with your current situation and start to see possibilities instead of problems.
We evolved in an environment of scarcity, but we now live in a world of plenty. Appreciate what you have, and focus on what you can give the world rather than what you can get from it.
Financial balance comes from deciding how to spend your money and having clear priorities. Being rich is about knowing what you want. Anyone can have a Ferarri if they want it enough but ask yourself:
“Do I have enough money to support my priorities?”
If your answer is not an overwhelming yes, then there is room for improvement. The best way to improve your financial situation is to improve your skills to make you more employable.
Stay curious
We must constantly upgrade our skills and knowledge to stay relevant in an evolving world. Unless you are naturally curious, like the founder of modern biology, Alexander van Humbolt, this will require you to train your curiosity.
Just like it can help improve your gratitude, meditation can also train your curiosity. Everything becomes more interesting when you meditate regularly and methodically. When you learn to focus on a single object – be it your breath, coffee, chocolate, or any one thing – you become fascinated with everything else in your life.
This curiosity, in return, will drive you to seek improvements in your knowledge and abilities, which will enhance your future. Maintaining a growth mindset is key to succeeding throughout a long life, as most careers will change rapidly due to rapidly evolving technology.
Learning is a meta-habit; to maintain a balanced life, you must learn to do it effectively. Take learning a language as an example; the more languages you acquire, the easier it is to pick up a new one. Your first foreign language will be the most difficult to learn. Then, as you learn more and discover how they function, they will get easier for you. You will become better at breaking them down and understanding the function of new words.
While I used learning languages as an example, this applies to all disciplines. The more time you dedicate to learning, the easier it will be to learn, which makes you more adaptable to changes in your career. You might be a single ultralearning project away from your dream life. Still, you will remain unable to reach that dream without the clarity to see it and the skills to do that project. Dedicate some time to learning, but remember that life is about balance, so save time to build your community and stay healthy.
Tune in next week to find out why community and health are also. Until then, if you like what you read, subscribe below to join my longevity community and have these posts sent right to your inbox.
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