Consider a financial plan for yourself. It is important to remember you are not competing against anyone else or trying to get ahead of your neighbors. This is not a race! That would be a wrong motivation. This is between you and God, and it is about you having the resources to fulfill your destiny. That is…to do all you are called to do on this earth.

You will use your regular net worth calculation to monitor the success of your financial plan. Just do it. Get started. The longer you wait, the harder it will be to start. Just do it. Do not slip into the delusion that you will get rich overnight. Instead plan to move into a prosperous life-style gradually. I have included a simple template to get you started in my book A Practical Path to a Prosperous Life in Appendix F on page 260.

A prosperous person will be outcome-based not hourly-based. The hourlybased person will put in a lot of time and be happy with that even though the objective has not been reached. “I did my best and tried hard. I feel good about my effort. If you want I can tell you about how hard I tried. It is a great story.” But what is the outcome? Either you put a measurable financial plan together or you did not. A prosperous person will look for a way to achieve the goal. Either you will initiate change or things will stay the same. But even if you initiate steps to change some of those steps might not work. Don’t be satisfied to have taken steps, persevere with needed adjustments until change occurs.

Be realistic and recognize failure to achieve desired outcomes, though this should be done in a positive environment. Failure is not the enemy of success but rather the teacher of success. This is a valuable tool. I am sure you have heard of the great number of failures Abraham Lincoln experienced before he was elected President of the United States, or of the thousands of times Edison tried the light bulb before he discovered how it worked. For some, failure defeats them and yet for others failure motivates them.