The question 'why become rich?' may at first seem like a silly one, but it should be one of the first you ask yourself, and it is far from silly- it may be the most important one of all, because the 'why' will color the quality of the experience- and it's the quality that we're concerned about- because the quality is the point, not the money.

Huh?  Yes, it's the quality, and not the money, that's important- and the quality we create in our lives (by quality, we mean 'happiness', 'peacefulness', 'alignment with reality', that sort of thing) is what shapes our experience of life.  The reason we focus on money is to allow it to teach us the life lessons we need to learn in order to become happy, effective, and successful in the area of our financial lives.

We've all seen rich, unhappy people, and understood that all their money didn't make them happy.  It may be tempting to conclude that their happiness, or lack thereof, is due to their money, but that's not true- it isn't their money, it's their why that makes them unhappy- and the difference between the two is incredibly important, because money is a result of your why- it's not the cause or culprit, it's the product of what's going on underneath.

It's this WHY that I'm concerned with, because the why of anything determines the quality, the 'how', if you will, of your results.  It's how you relate to an idea emotionally that determines how you express it in action- it's just how our minds work.

Wealth can mean a lot of things- it can mean power, it can mean freedom, it can mean prestige and status, and with these things come a lot of other things- joy, fear, resentment- when it comes to relating to wealth, you have a lot of angles to choose from.  Some of these angles will translate into easy, graceful, and supportive ideas and attitudes about finance, which will in turn make it easier for you to become the future 'you' that is at ease, effective, and non-conflicted in your financial life.

Now, at the same time, the way you relate to wealth has little to do with your morality- instead, the way you relate to it is a function of your attitudes and perspectives and perhaps more importantly, the way you identify with them. If, for example, you relate to money as a means to prove your worth, then obviously that will color the way you subsequently act.  If you relate to it as a power you can use for good, it's likely that you'll act in a different manner.  If you relate to money as a means to avoid problems, this relationship will also color the way you operate.  In brief, the way you perceive money influences not only the way you respond to it, but also the power over yourself that you give to money.  Now in all three cases, money becomes something different to you, but you remain the same you- your morals are not changed, your ethics are still yours... the only thing that becomes different is the way you relate to your financial self- and once you're free to shift around in that relationship, you become free to examine and choose your relationships with money as well.  With choice and flexibility comes clarity, and it also allows you to re-examine your 'whys'.

Being clear on why you're doing anything is not only vitally important in terms of being happy, it is also pivotal in actually achieving those goals faster.  If your reasons for becoming wealthy aren't supportive, having money won't make you happier than you are now and all you'll accomplish in the process of becoming more wealthy is to remain unhappy. At the same time, if your reasons for becoming wealthy aren't supportive, your progress toward wealth will probably be exceedingly slow.  When you're happy, you've got vitality and energy and creativity going for you, life is easier- when you're not, getting anything done feels like you're going uphill.  Being happy makes you more attractive, and when you attract the right stuff, doors open and life speeds up.

Clarity of purpose is vital because it shows you how to get there, and the guiding principle is this: the qualities of being there are the qualities of getting there.  What does this mean, exactly?  If you're like me, it took a little figuring to wrap my head around this one:

• Only when you are the person who can have success, will you have success.  The world won't let you have what you can't handle, and success is no different than anything else that's important.  You can't fake this, you can't sneak in through the back door, it doesn't work- in order to achieve success, you must first embody its qualities.
• Only when you treat an opportunity, business, relationship, or friend like it's made of gold will it turn into gold.  You can't make friends without being a friend.  You can't expect a business or a relationship to succeed on it's own without making it so.  By the same token, you can't succeed without becoming a success.  All of these things can be easy.
• You'll enjoy the destination only if you enjoyed the journey... because the secret is that the journey doesn't end, the destination is where you are now on your journey.  If you sacrifice, compromise, equivocate, neglect your values, or suffer in order to get there... you'll do so forever because you'll never get 'there'.  ...and even if you wake up one day wealthy after years of it... you'll realize that all you got was wealthy- but is that the success you want?

The qualities of getting there are the qualities of being there.  'There' is the goal- in our case, the goal might be financial freedom, it might be simply happiness.  The question is how do you want to get there? Do you want to get there as a success?  Do you want to get there happy?  Do you want to get there in good health? In love? Loved? Respected?

In this light, the question 'why do you want to become wealthy?' is vitally important when it comes to determining the qualities of being and getting there, because there are perfectly reasonable-sounding motives for getting there that will predictably turn out to be disastrous.  These are traps, and the tragic thing is that if you haven't fallen into one of these yourself, you probably know someone who has.

In this article we'll discuss some classic 'reasons for becoming rich', and how they can be self-defeating or worse.  We'll also look at a good reason and explore why it's a good one.  Remember, the entire purpose of this is to help you clarify your goals- without that clarity, most of us fall into one or more of the following traps.  If you're doing something for the wrong reason, it can become pretty punishing- but a simple shift, a change of purpose, can make achieving the same goal lighter, easier, faster, and infinitely more rewarding!

Some Motives for getting rich that give money power over you:

'To feel secure'- If you don't have the money to give yourself adequate food, shelter, clothing, or other necessities, that's one thing.  In this case, you need more in order to meet your needs and until your needs are met, it's entirely reasonable to be unsatisfied.  If you want to be wealthy in order to feel secure, however, that can become a problem- because it implies that you'll feel insecure until you're wealthy, however much money that means.

The problem with this motive is that it doesn't work- if you're nervous that you won't have enough... you'll soon discover that 'enough' is a moving target, and it'll generally be just a bit more than you have at any given time.  If you're insecure about not having enough, you'll be afraid of losing what you've got, afraid to take risks, and you'll relate to money in a punishing, unhappy way- and if it becomes intense enough, you'll do what it takes to be rid of that relationship with your money.

'to have control'

This is an expensive one. The truth is that lack of control is never really ever your problem.  The only times we feel like we need more control is when there's a real problem out there causing you to want control of your situation- but the great irony here is that generally we try to control the symptoms, rather than the causes, of our problems- so if we're unhappy with our own self-image, we'll buy expensive things in order to impress other people, rather than simply forgiving ourselves for being human.

Money cannot give you control, but it can help you feel like you've got control... but the irony is that in order to use money to get that feeling, you need to spend it- and if you spend in order to make your problems go away, you'll discover (after spending a lot of money trying) that there are some problems that money can't solve.  At the same time, if your only strategy for dealing with problems is to throw money at it, you're in a situation where without money you'd be helpless.  If you use money for control, ultimately money controls you.

'to prove my worth'

'To be loved or appreciated'-  This is a cruel one.  I have a friend who's convinced that once he's a millionaire, women will find him irresistible. ...you can see the problem?  Until he's a millionaire, he's not going to believe that he's worthy or attractive, and any girl will tell you that if you're not confident enough to be yourself, your attractiveness level goes down in a hurry.  What's more, once he becomes a millionaire, he's going to attract the kind of woman who's interested in his money.  

Love is a wonderful thing, and it doesn't have anything to do with how much money you have- it has everything to do with how well you love yourself and how well you love others.  You are your most attractive when you reveal your true self- and the only way to do that is to be comfortable with who you are.  Too often we have an image of who we 'should' be, and we try to force ourselves into the mold of our 'should be' image by putting on an act.  Again, the quality of being there is the quality of getting there- in order to be loved, you have to be the person who can love not only yourself, but others as well.

My friend's act/concept of self is that he's successful now, and although he's made enormous amounts of money several times, he's managed to lose it repeatedly- he's spent a lot of money on maintaining his act, showing everyone how much money he makes, trying to get a little appreciation, working way too hard to be loved.

Getting a little love or appreciation is a noble goal, but it's a terrible reason to become wealthy- in the end, you'll have neither love nor wealth nor appreciation.  You need a better reason that that.

'To be happy'-  This one has some subtle ramifications.  The process of growing into the person who can create and receive wealth is the same process as becoming a generally more happy person, but it has little to do with having money- it has more to do with being free of money's power and 'in choice' with regard to money and the way it can influence you.

The trap here is that for many of us, the concept of happiness is conflicted- if you think that you'll be happy if you just have more money so you can solve all of the problems in your life that are making you unhappy... the hard truth is that you'll never have enough money to solve your problems- all you'll have is enough money to avoid some of them. 

You'll never be able to buy your way out of all of your problems- you'll always have problems.  The problem in front of you is the one you haven't figured out yet- solve it, another will come along.  In this sense, getting piles of money 'so that we can solve our problems' is really driven by the motivation to avoid them- which usually results in living a life solving puny, boring ones.

Now, avoiding unhappiness is not an ignoble goal- it's just that it's not fulfilling and it won't make you happy, and no amount of money can.  The problem with using money to make you happy is that if you try to do this, you'll spend gobs of money titillating yourself before you realize that titillation is not fulfilling.  One day you'll wake up with a closet full of fashionable shoes, nothing in your bank account, credit card debt that's in the red, and realize that your quest for becoming wealthy has been completely unpleasant... but you might never understand that it was unpleasant because it was driven by an un-supportive motivation.

It doesn't have to be this way!

Money as a reflective object

All things reflect back to you the things you project upon them- that's just how our experience of this reality is.  If you look at money as good, evil, seductive, or whatever, that's what you'll see when you contemplate money.  If you take a good long look at your personal mythology around money you'll probably notice that (like the rest of us) you're projecting a whole lot onto your money, and whatever you're projecting is also the thing you're wrestling with, responding to, and creating more of when you contemplate or create more money for yourself.

It follows, then, that if our view of money is an unsupportive one, (that is, if money is, for us, a thing we're conflicted about) that in maintaining this relationship with money we're creating our own obstacles when it comes to being easy and successful and abundant in our lives.  If you're conflicted about money because your parents told you it was the root of all evil, for example, it might be time to choose a different myth to believe.

Believe it or not, it is as simple as that.  Pick a different myth.  You know that there's nothing inherently evil about money, but deep down many of us believe it- it's what comes to mind when we contemplate money.  It's a program that we've received, validated, and act out- and sure enough, when we believe it, we project it on money, and it reflects back to us and there we have it, plain as day, there's lots of evil for all to see.  Trouble is, other people who project different myths onto it are seeing their own reflections... and the real secret is that it's much easier when your beliefs make your 'natural' reaction to questions around money (or anything, for that matter) into an easy, effective, elegant response that gets you ahead.

The difference between having a supportive myth and an unsupportive one is simply in the first thought you have at a particular revelation.  If the stock market goes down, do you think 'I've lost money, why didn't I sell?', or do you think 'time to buy stock while it's cheap'?  The first puts you on the back foot, frustrates you.  The second excites you and supports you.  That's it.

Some reasons for becoming wealthy that empower you:

FREEDOM- Freedom gives you the power to express your values, to serve the purpose that the universe has for you, and serving that purpose will make you happy, guaranteed.

The interesting thing is that the same things that give you freedom give you money and happiness-.

Impact-

You bring to this world the perfect expression of what it is that you have to offer.  In your life, you are becoming more and more perfectly you.

True Happiness and Joy-

When you find ways to create value and deliver it to people, money finds ways to roll in if you allow yourself to receive it.  In order to find ways to create value and deliver it to those who want it, you have to see the world clearly.  When you see the world clearly, you become more effective in your actions, and more elegant in the way you manage yourself- you let go of your existential angst and get down to brass tacks.  In this regard, the process that makes you wealthy gets you in touch with who you really are and what you really want.  It's a metaphysical boot camp that reflects your successes and failures back at you- get it right and you feel on top of the world (and the money comes in).  Get it wrong and you'll notice it not just on the bottom line, but in your heart as well.

Now we've also noticed that the way we view a thing reflects back to us- if we think of money as a tool to control people or to help us avoid solving our problems, that's where we start- because when we think of and try to use money for control or avoidance, we're reinforcing and acting in an unsupportive belief that will ultimately get in our way and sabatoge our success.

At this point, when you choose beliefs and perceptions that empower you to do what you're here for, when you become that person whose intent and action is aligned with reality closely enough to serve the most people the most elegantly, life gets easier, happier, more fun, more abundant, and more free.

Money isn't the goal- it's the result.  The goal is happiness, the path is freedom, and the money is just a tool.  Freedom doesn't mean power or security, it means acting out of choice, rather than out of compulsion or habit or fear.  necessity is the mother of freedom, not the enemy.