Try not to become a man of success but a man of value.
Albert Einstein
The loop of struggle is voluntary. Whether you stay in it or not depends on the choices you make. If you follow the advice of voluntary strugglers and do what your parents tell you to (if they poorly manage their money and think that life is a struggle), then you will stay in this loop of struggle.
To break out of it means making some unconventional (as it will seem to many) choices in your life so that you would not end up like everyone else. These choices will make some people call you irresponsible and unwilling to grow up, but it’s your life and if you don’t want to end up like the masses, you might as well follow such advice.
So here is the main advice that will help you break out of the loop of struggle no matter how bad your situation might be.
Distance yourself from voluntary strugglers and be with progress makers
If your friends and family are voluntary strugglers, every single day you absorb their limiting views of the world and their false understanding about all important things in life such as money, success and happiness. If you don’t want to have the same life as they do, you should change your friends or at least partially distance yourself from the impact of voluntary strugglers. You should start being with progress makers because they will motivate you, make you believe in yourself and encourage you to achieve your goals.
Read books written by progress makers and study their mindset. You should reach a point where you are more influenced by progress makers than by voluntary strugglers.
Don’t get into any debts until you earn enough to buy things for cash.
Getting into debt is not a sin, but it keeps you in the struggle loop because it gets you out of the flow of effortless abundance. When you borrow from a person or an institution, you lower yourself to them. You as though become a slave to them because you place your security in their hands. That’s not how it’s supposed to be because we are all equal.
To receive more money, you shouldn’t ask for it from someone else. To receive money, you should give money first. I know it seems a strange way of thinking but that’s because we are taught the wrong rules about money which lead to the loss of freedom and debt. To never see the lack of money you have to get into the abundance mindset and leave the scarcity mindset. That means thinking in a completely different way than the majority of people do.
Have as little responsibilities as possible
You shouldn’t take on new responsibilities until you really know that you can handle all of them on your own. This means buying a house when you can really afford it and not when you qualify for the mortgage. This means having kids when you are financially secure and not when you can barely make the ends meet. I know that it feels nice to have your own place, but if you take out the mortgage, you are going to get into debt for life (or most of it anyway). That means loss of freedom until you die or for at least 20 or 30 years. So it’s a big price to pay for a house.
I know it’s much easier to do what most people do – have kids, get mortgage, get married. But if you are not ready, you are just enslaving yourself.
Don’t be like everyone else – break out of this horrible loop. Don’t get a mortgage and don’t have kids if you are not ready for such responsibilities. Create financial freedom first, travel, enjoy the world and see what it has to offer you.
Don’t settle down for less than what you want. Reach for your goals and focus on the achievements of others so that they would motivate you to achieve great things in life. Look away from those that are enslaved by the loop of struggle.
Reduce your expenses to experience freedom.
The less expenses you have, the more free you will feel. There are, however, two schools of thought on this subject. One says (e.g. R. Kiyosaki) that you should not reduce your expenses but focus on building assets. I completely understand this concept and it makes sense, however it can take years for your assets to be able to cover your large expenses. The other way of thinking (e.g. Bob Proctor) worked for me much better. It teaches that you should reduce your expenses as much as possible to create more freedom for yourself.
When you significantly reduce your expenses, more opportunities will show themselves to you and you will have more options. You will see that it’s really possible to start your own business to cover your small expenses and to quit the 9-5 slavery. You will also realise that you don’t have to live in one place all your life – you can move somewhere else if you feel like it because it’s your life and you can do whatever you want with it.
The less expenses you will have, the more in control of your life you will get. So only keep the expenses that are vital. Keep only those that would significantly reduce the quality of your life or would make you miserable.