"...money is a result, not a cause, of a successful lifestyle."

"Happiness is an indicator of a successful lifestyle"

The way to get both happiness and money is to create a successful lifestyle.

One effective way to create a successful lifestyle is in identifying habits and beliefs that don't serve you, and letting them go.

...the process of creating a more and more successful lifestyle is a way to create more happiness and freedom in your life, and in the end, that is the primary objective.

Many of us labor under the impression that once we're rich, we'll be happy- after all, we see rich people with lots of money and they're happy, right?  So we look at our financial situation, crunch some numbers, and figure out that it's time to pile up the money so that one day we can be happy.  The illusion is that 'being rich' is a destination in the future, and that once you get there somehow you'll be the happy rich person you dream of becoming.

The problem is that it doesn't work that way- happiness doesn't come from how much money you have in the bank, it comes from the way you view and relate to your world.  It follows then, that in order to acquire the results (the money, the happiness, the freedom) we need to find the cause of these things- in short, we must become the person who can have success/happiness/freedom before we can 'get there'.  Put another way, the process of getting there is a process in which you become the person who can have the success you want.

If you're like me, you might be challenged by the notion that somehow you're not the person who can have these things- after all, I'm a good person, don't I deserve them? ...but the truth is that this isn't about what you deserve, it's about what you create and make real.  You are the person now who can have what you do have- because what you have right now is the result of who and how you are.  What you have today, the gifts and assets and potential, are what you have created for yourself.  For different results, you need to become the person who creates that, instead.  Your pay is based on the value you deliver to your customer (if you're an employee, your employer is your customer)- so it follows that in order to receive more pay, you've got to deliver more, to more people.

One simple lesson we can draw from this is that when it comes to creating a successful lifestyle, (that is, one that meets your needs while preparing you to cover your needs in case of emergency or your retirement), it's vital that we understand that it's impossible to live in any time but the present- and that means that the challenge we face when designing a lifestyle that'll make us happy and successful in the future is really in making sure that it makes us happy and successful in the present as well.  In other words, in order to be happy in the future, we must find a way to be happy in the present- thus, when we arrive in the future, we'll be happy then because we'll have brought our happy present forward through time with us.  Similarly, if we want to earn more in the future, we need to deliver more in the present, so that we can create the future we want.

If you're like me, the concept of 'creating your future success today' will take some time to sink in and make sense- personally, I used to measure 'successful' by my results, (things I could afford, money I spent, roles I could play) rather than by their causes (money I made, value I created), because the results were what I could see.  I would have heard 'be successful in the present' and thought "I can't afford to be successful right now, I'm too poor!"

In other words, I measured my success by whether or not I was maintaining a lifestyle that put me in my financial comfort zone- and I measured it by the home I could afford, the money I had in the bank, the car I drove, whether I could live up to my expectation of being a 'provider'.  In short, I measured my success by the amount I could afford to spend.

Now, it might be simple to think that if you can afford to spend enough to have the stuff you want today, that you're successful- but the problem is that it's possible (and common) to spend more than you can afford, and to extend your spending by borrowing.  What's more, if you measure your 'success' by what you spend, the temptation to overspend in order to feel good about yourself can become intense- and this can become a trap, because eventually that spending will catch up with you and create problems in your financial and emotional life by putting your happiness and your financial success at odds with each other.

In this article we'll discuss the relationship between 'getting there' (that is, getting to your future financial success) and 'being there'- that is, what it will be like to arrive at your imagined future success.  After all, we all have that vision of what it will be like to have the lifestyle of our future- the problem is that many of us see other successful people and are trying to get there in a way that probably won't work according to plan.

The reality we're up against here is that money, influence, and stuff are results, not causes, of a successful lifestyle.  You can't create a successful lifestyle by piling up money, nor can you create a successful lifestyle by spending it- because you can't create the cause by manipulating the results.

This, of course, deflates a lot of strategies based on taking on a lifestyle we don't like in order to be able to afford the one that we want- for example, those who neglect themselves in favor of piling up money will (if they make it) arrive in their futures with a pile of money that hasn't made them happy, and will themselves be the product of habitual self-neglect.  Of course, it is rather more likely that they'll get sick of living uncomfortably and try to use some of the money to 'treat' themselves- and their financial progress will look like a 'two steps forward, one step back' kinda deal.

This also supports the notion that if you're having fun doing what you do, you're more likely to succeed- you'll be able to stick with it, do a better job of it, and (more often than not) if you're having fun that's often a sign that you're particularly talented in one or more aspects of what it is that you do... and there's a few lessons to be gleaned from this: 1) Playing to your strengths and talents is a winning strategy, 2) Being happy is a winning strategy when it comes to building wealth, and perhaps as a corollary, living within your emotional comfort zone is absolutely vital when it comes to becoming successful, because if you're unhappy you'll do what it takes to change, even if the change creates worse problems.

....now your emotional comfort zone might currently require you to be ahead of the Joneses- so what has to give?  If keeping up with the joneses puts you into debt, and you have to be ahead of the joneses to be happy, how can you create your successful lifestyle?  The trick is in understanding that your emotional comfort zone is not fixed in stone- you can realize, for example, that your need to spend more money than the Joneses is not vital for your happiness, (and that in fact it creates serious unhappiness) and when you reach that point of clarity, your comfort zone shifts and it's possible to have a lifestyle in your comfort zone that also moves you toward financial freedom.

The challenge, if you want to 'get ahead', is to create a lifestyle that allows you to enjoy doing things that get you ahead.  This challenge touches the core reason why so many people struggle financially- it is because they derive much of their gratification from doing things (like spending) that put them behind, and their lives play out their process of trying to resolve opposing urges.  This is a valid path to choose, but it's a path of self-conflict and not one I'd choose lightly.

Of course, there are realities to face- you've got bills and necessities and those can be viewed as obstacles to becoming financially free, and these are in some sense immutable obstacles, unless you don't need food, shelter, clothing and the like- but there are other realities to face as well.  Specifically, it's really true that you don't need to spend money (beyond your true necessities) in order to be happy.  Once you understand this, money will lose it's power over you and you can have a lifestyle that is rewarding, and which allows you to move toward financial freedom much more quickly and easily than you are now.

But wait, you ask, if we don't need money to be happy, then why are we worried about having a successful (financial) lifestyle?  Why is 'financial freedom' important?

First of all, financial freedom is simply that point where your passive and portfolio income pay for your needs.  Needs, of course, are the factors in your life that must be satisfied before you can express your true self. Financial freedom is the point at which your needs are truly met without you needing to go to work- it's the point at which you need nothing more for yourself and you become free to do whatever you want- like retire, or do charity work, or donate your paychecks (if you choose not to retire) to the charity of your choice, or whatever it is that will express the best thing that you have to offer the world.  So financial freedom is a neat thing and an excellent goal, but remember this article is about the process, not the goal.  It's the process and not the goal that we're after- we're after a lifestyle that makes us happy and moves us toward that goal, because the process of moving toward financial freedom is the exact same process that makes us free of the dark side of money. 

The moment we stop trying to use money to regulate our happiness (buying things for our pleasure, keeping up with the Joneses, or other control strategies that don't work) is the same moment we reclaim the power over ourselves that we give to money- so the process of moving toward financial freedom is also the process of searching for ways in which to adjust your financial comfort zone to become free of it, so that we can live happier lives while spending less and less, and saving more and more, and finding ways to serve more people and make the world a better and better place.  Put more simply, one effective way to create a successful lifestyle is in identifying habits and beliefs that don't serve you, and letting them go.  After all, money is a result, and happiness an indicator of, a successful lifestyle- thus the process of creating a more and more successful lifestyle is a way to create more happiness and freedom in your life, and in the end, that is the primary objective... and the ironic thing is that once you become the person who has all that money, you will already have become the person who is capable of understanding that you never needed the money to be happy.  The problem is not money or it's lack, but rather that we choose to serve money instead of creating ways to have it serve us... and the ways in which this truth manifests in our lives is subtle and powerful.

So the drive to make all of that money is not so that you can have all of that money, it's so that you can go though the process of learning that your attitudes, your beliefs, your relationship to money, and who you think you are today (we all identify a lot with these things, and this identification can limit us) are very likely the factors that stand between you and your goal of empowerment in a financial sense.  The metaphysics involved are challenging and the process is, given the right motives, illuminating- and the resulting 'future you' is someone with few personal conflicts, vast capabilities, and the ability to influence and address the real problems in our world.  This future you needs less to be happy, is bothered by less, and is profoundly free.  This future you gives generously to charity (get started), solves real problems in the world (get started),  and knows how to impact people deeply while enjoying him/herself immensely, outrageously, fantastically (get started!).

There's a duality in the title of this article, which the article attempts to address- the basic point is that 'getting there' is exactly the same as 'being there'- that the end is irrelevant and the process is the point, and that the biggest step you can take toward true freedom and becoming that happy successful person you want to be is to learn how to take the 'vs.' out of the title, and to understand that you can't get there without becoming that person first.  The process is challenging, but rewarding- and one way to know that it's working is that as you progress, you get happier and more wealthy.  Previously insurmountable problems will become insignificant.  You will impact your world in bigger and more profound, positive ways... and you will be much, much more free in ways that have nothing at all to do with finance.

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