15 Reasons why you will remain poor and die a hustler.

It is a very common observation that much of the population's poor grovel in poverty for most of their lives. The truth is, this not really the government's fault or the rich for holding the poor down. 

Poverty is enshrined in one’s mind. Being poor is a state of mind. Sometimes. Being poor seeps into your brain and eventually takes over. 

Any person from low social-economic background can, with persistence, rise from the lowest of financial circumstances if he or she doesn't lose sight of prosperity as a goal.

The key to greatness and success lies within us - that we have to trigger and put to practice the intrinsic values and qualities within us. Only then can we see the wealth that we always dream of.

Unfortunately, the poor choose either through environmental, psychological and economic factors, to ignore the statutes and precepts on wealth creation and as a result - perpetuate poverty.

I believe that you have heard this saying, probably a thousand times that “Rich get richer and poor becoming poorer”, but have you ever asked yourself how many people have tried and proved this notion wrong?

There are several reasons and factors responsible for poverty in the lives of people. They include;-

1. Laziness

Majority of the poor people assume that the way to gain success is to go into a quiet room, turn off the lights, close the shades, sit on the couch and imagine a cheque with a so many zeros written on it. 

If this is your strategy for success, the only thing that will eventually show up more and more problems.

You have to take action and go out to meet success. You simply will not achieve success or wealth if you don't take action towards it. God does not prosper lazy hands. If ants can work so hard for their food, why can’t you? Daydreaming and wishful thinking will never make you prosper; hard work does! Laziness is a shortcut to poverty.

2. You Feel Powerless

Poverty or financial hardships can make you feel powerless to do anything to change it. You see your family living a certain way, you grow up a certain way, and you just don’t think it can ever be any different. You may even see a few family members try and fail, and you get the message loud and clear, ‘There is no escape from your situation’ – you learn to be helpless. Giving in to such feelings of helplessness will only hurt you.

You simply need to take the right steps to make a hard financial decisions and also associating with people who make you feel empowered and confident in your finance journey. People who will encourage you and offer accurate, unbiased knowledge and advice.

3. Self-limiting belief.

One of the main factors that glue people in poverty is self-limiting belief. Poor people believe they are creatures of circumstance. This is the belief that one is are limited in some way in terms of time, talents, intelligence, ability and opportunity.

Until you overcome your self-limiting beliefs, you will never have any incredible result in life.

It is good to note that the same obstacle that is holding you back was actually the path of other successful people at one time in their life journey. The difference between you and them is that instead of complaining, giving excuses and whining, they become determined, and caused their obstacle to be their stepping stone to success.

When you allow unpleasant circumstances to condition your mind to believe that poverty is your lot in life and that there is no way you can beat the odds that are standing between you and a life of financial abundance, then you are suffering from self-limiting belief. If you must attain financial freedom, you must purge your thinking of limiting beliefs. The antidote to limiting belief is truth. When you know the truth about your real potential as a human being, the truth shall set you free.

4. Discouragement.

At times previous negative experiences hold us back from our successes. It is possible you have made certain efforts in the past, but because your effort yielded no positive result, you have allowed the past failure to make you depressed, frustrated and hopeless. No wonder you are no more willing to try.

The truth is that, the fact that you failed in the past does not mean you will fail again. Succeeding financially is not something that takes place overnight; it requires time, dedication and persistence. 

You must be willing to fail over and over again until you succeed.

5. Putting today's happiness before future financial needs.

Poverty is often generational. You might be poor simply because your family always has been, “which is one of the hardest environments for making progress”.

Some of the decisions people make aren't aligned with their future financial needs. Making conscious decisions that require some thought about the future isn't as satisfying in the moment as choosing something that they perceive to have an immediate positive effect on happiness. They end up spending too much money on not so important expenditure and end up struggling financially.

6. Not separating wants from needs.

Generally speaking, most people have a hard time differentiating wants and needs. They use the word ‘need’ for almost everything they purchase, causing them to actually believe they ‘have’ to spend the money.

This mentality keeps us down financially. For instance, one might ‘need’ a car for transport, but they ‘want’ the luxury model.

7. Not looking for opportunities to make money.

The worst thing in life is having sight but no vision. When it comes to making money, you don’t wait for opportunity to find you. It is your sole responsibility to seek or create opportunity to make money.

With your skills and the environment you are right now, there are numerous opportunities to make more money, the only reason you can’t see them is because you are not making conscious effort to see them, or you are probably blind in the mind.

You are not poor because you lack capital, but because you are blind in the mind. You are still poor because you have ignorantly conditioned your mind that money can only come from your current skill. To make more money, you must make a deliberate effort to think and seek for other opportunities to make money in your environment. Opportunities out there are unlimited.

8. Unwillingness to start small.

One reason people remain poor is because they are unwilling to start small. They want to wait until they have enough to set up a conglomerate because they can start. Most often, people like this end up doing nothing, and die in poverty.

If you must be rich, you must be willing to start small. You don’t climb the ladder of financial success from the top to the bottom but the vice versa and you actually climb it one rung at a time.

Most people who are wealthy in the society today, started with little or nothing, they remain focused and steady. They despised the shame of humble beginning and gradually carried their cross until they become the envy of those around them.

If you despise the days of little beginning, you will never see great days. What one needs to succeed is insight, not capital, and the insight they need demands their humility. No matter how little one have right now, they need to start that business idea they have always dreamt of.

Their business environment may not make sense now but overtime it will. Someone once said, I may start radarada (anyhow) but I will end daradara (well).

9. Trying to get rich quick.

Too many people are looking for the quick and easy way out of poverty and are trying to get rich quick. Whether it be gambling, a job or business idea, too many of us chase the idea that we can come into extraordinary wealth overnight.

Sadly, it doesn't work this way. You have to put in the hard work to become rich. We see the rich now and assume that they got lucky. We don't see behind the scenes at just how much work they put in to get where they are.

Ambition and passion are good. Greed is destructive. The first thing that happens when you get greedy is that your ethics become compromised. You want to make as much money as you can, as fast as you can. And it doesn't matter who gets hurt along the way.

10. Trying to have it all.

Some people end up broke because they want too many things too soon. This is especially challenging for recent college graduates who go from living on peanuts to having a livable paycheck but still can't ‘realistically afford the new house and the new car and the nights out and the holidays abroad’.

This gets particularly dangerous when one starts using credit cards and loans to fund all those purchases, eventually crippling their future financial life.

Instead of trying to have it all, it is advisable to pick one big ‘want’ to budget for and leave the rest for the future when one has had a chance to build up some savings and earn a pay raise.

Living one more year like a student (or a hustler) while saving your first paychecks can help tremendously.

11. Thinking it is too late to be rich.

Sometimes people remain poor because they thought it is too late for them to become successful financially. But the truth is that there are so many wealthy people that started late in life and still achieve their dream of being rich before they died.

One sign you have given up on ever becoming rich is the resolve that you will give your children the best of education so that the height you didn’t attain financially, they can attain it. It is a laudable ambition to train your kids, but giving up on your own chances of becoming somebody financially is suicidal.

It is never too late to begin. The thought that you are already old is a limiting belief.

12. Lack of a money plan.

The biggest reason people stay poor is because they do not have any plan for the little money they get. It is easy to hope that there is money left over at the end of the month, but many times, our behaviour gets in the way.

To curb behaviour and work against bad spending habits, automating bills, saving and investing as soon as paychecks come in will cushion the blow when emergencies pop up, and one will have something for retirement.

13. Solely relying on only one stream of income.

One of the reasons you are still poor is because you only depend on one source of come. The average poor man is a self-employed professional or an employee, who earns a meagre salary and keeps doing what he does for a living without improving or thinking of other means of generating money. When you become broke, you end up blaming God, devil or the government for his financial predicament. 

Even after many years of whining, we still remain at the same spot financially.

If you observe the life of rich people, you will observe that none of them rely on one source of income. Therefore, if you must get out of poverty, you must have a burning desire to acquire wealth, and be willing to learn all that you need to know on how money work and apply what you have learned by taking the right action. To get out of poverty very fast, one source of income can never be enough.

The mistake people often make is that once they get a steady source of come and become comfortable, they naively think they have arrived. However, as their financial problems increases or experience a set back in business, they regrettably find out how poor they are.

You need to have the right mindset in order to start your own successful business without quitting your job, or having to put up a lot of money. Once you have a steady source of income, try to create another and yet another until you have enough streams that will put you where you desire to be financially.

14. Spend More Money Than You Make.

More often than naught, the root cause of being broke is nearly always the same – people spending more than they make. This is the only cause of bankruptcy.

The good news is that one can tackle this mess from both sides of the equation by (i) spending less to live within their means and (ii) working to earn more so that they have more financial breathing room.

15. Setting impotent goals.

The reason most people are not successful is not because they set their goals too high and therefore miss them, it's because they set their goals too low and hit them.

If your goals are low and you keep hitting them, then you need to raise your standards and ambitions. 

You need to have a continuing dedication to going further than those around you.

On the other hand, don't set your goals so high that they become unrealistic, because people abandon unrealistic goals. Instead, set your goals just above your comfort zone so that they inspire you to continue working toward them. 

The right goal will help you secure a better future for not only you, but also your family. The proper goal will bring you wealth. Money is simply a way of achieving freedom.