Imagine what your life should be like in the next five to ten years.
Having a nice time with family and friends on the beach, being your own boss, not having anything to worry about, e.t.c. OK, stop imagining. How does your present situation seem compared to your imaginations? Does it seem achievable, is it impossible or will it just be an imagination?
The answer is up to you, you’re responsible for your life’s outcomes. What happens to you in five to ten years’ time depends on you.
Nobody is coming to save you not even the government with its promises. You’re the savior of your life. for as a man thinks and acts, so is he. we become what we think and act on, our current condition is as a result of the decisions we choose to act on influenced by our thoughts.
Each day in our lives, we’re constantly making decisions, from what to eat, what to wear, what to read, what to do, which route to follow, and on and on, these decisions are what set the path for our experiences each day.
We could now see that we’re the creators of our experiences and outcomes. For example, you could think about becoming a millionaire by the age of 30 or less, and currently, you have nothing to tell that you’ll certainly achieve that figure at that age.
If you just think of it, nothing is going to happen, but when you draft out a plan and commit to following that plan, falling and rising, analyzing and improving, you’ll certainly achieve that result you thought of. Even if you didn’t achieve that exact figure, you’ll certainly achieve so much that you’ll be so grateful to yourself for giving yourself the opportunity for starting out.
Thinking, hoping, and wishing is not a plan. A plan is a plan. that’s what this article is about, practical steps you could follow in the next few minutes to transform your status starting with nothing, not even a dime.
Maybe you’re like me, years ago, having no college degree, no skill, and not even a dime in my bank account. I was just imagining how I would love my life to be, I was literally not making any progress in achieving my dream life. I had to analyze my life to see where am missing it, and to find out why things are not really working.
At first, I had to come up with excuses like “ I don’t have a degree, skill, money to start a business, no connections, etc.” These excuses never brought any change in my life, I finally realized that my lack of progress was a result of three things; Ignorance, lack of responsibility mentality, and excuses.
I decided to take responsibility for my life, stop giving excuses and start learning. I began by drafting out a plan, a plan inspired by the research I carried out on successful people in life and business. To cut the long story short, today, my life has drastically changed following the plan I drafted. I’ve finally transitioned from having nothing to being a manager of two residential estates, a writer, a website developer and designer, and an investor.
I had no skill before, now I had a lot of them, no job but now working at my own terms as a freelancer and having my own side business am still developing, no investments to being an investor in several places like the real estate, crypto, and health care.
I currently see myself gradually becoming what I imagined, just by following the plan I drafted out from studying successful people in life and business. The most interesting part of this story is that I started with no skill or money, I only used what was available for free to everyone. With that said let’s see how we can start from zero with zero, shall we!
LEARN
The best way to start from zero with zero is to learn a new skill. Learning a new skill doesn’t just make you a skilled person in a particular field, it rather increases your chances of succeeding. By learning a new skill, you get equipped with a solution to an existing problem. A problem that your skill can effectively solve and get you rewarded accordingly.
The internet is home to a lot of information that just with a click of a button, you can get tons of information from it. You can leverage on the internet and learn any skill you want that can be taught online for free. When we talk about leveraging on the internet, we’re talking about using the available resources available online to our advantage.
There are tons of free courses on diverse skills available online that you could get started with like; cooking, baking, computer programming, copywriting, content writing, marketing, etc. you can learn all these skills and more online for free. Thanks to the internet, YouTube, and other platforms that makes learning online is possible.
Having no skill is no longer an excuse in today’s world, we could learn a skill and improve on it for free, just by going online and searching for a skill you want to learn on Google or YouTube to get started. You need to set out time each day for learning the skill and discipline yourself to commit to it every day.
MONETIZE
Remember how it all started, from zero with zero ( no skill ) to now having a skill. The next thing to do is to monetize that skill, monetizing your skill is making money with your skill. You don’t need money to do that either, all you need is a simple strategy to get those numbers coming in.
The internet presents us with so many opportunities for monetizing our skills, sites like freelancer.com, upwork.com, and fiver.com can come in handy. These websites are freelancing platforms where you could get noticed and get jobs according to your skill.
Alternatively, you could search directly for jobs that relate to you online via google or on social media platforms like Facebook, and get jobs directly from businesses. If your skill is writing, you could search the internet for publications and submit your application, if you get approved, you can start writing for them.
Whether or not you want to be a freelancer is up to you, you could stick with one company or publication (for writers) or you could explore more.
One thing you don’t want to do is to start your own business immediately. Remember you’re starting from zero with zero, and right now you’re trying to get something with your skill. It’s advisable to get as much money you can with your skill by working for others and, raising money in the process to start up your own venture if you’d like to.
You could do your first two to ten jobs for free, just to get reviews from clients to enhance your credibility, to get experience, and a reference point for future job bidding.
SAVE and INVEST
At this point, you’ve transitioned from starting from zero with zero to being skilled and earning. What a journey it’s been! you need to start building a financial empire. You have a skill and you’re earning with it by working, you probably don’t want to work all your life.
Even if you want to, you just can’t. For you’ll get to a stage in life where you won’t be able to do what you’re currently doing effectively, a time where you can no longer exchange your service directly for money. What do you do at such time? will you be back to zero or traveling the world and spending time with loved ones for the rest of your life?.
That’s why it’s important to start building your financial empire so you won’t have money problems to worry about by, saving and investing as you start earning.
Saving some cash in your emergency funds and investing in yourself (getting books to improve yourself, attending seminars, and getting relevant tools and gadgets that relate to your skills for efficiency), investing in your own business (if you’d like to set up one) or investing in stocks, real estate, retirement plans, and health insurance.
With this, you’re putting your money to work for you and increasing your earning power. You no longer earn with your skills alone but with your investments too, you can choose to stop earning with your skill when your investments have guaranteed a comfortable return according to your retirement goals.
You can check out my post on 10 things to do to retire early, for more clarity on this saving and investing for retirement. The goal is not starting from zero with zero to being successful but, starting from zero with zero to being and staying successful.
REPEAT
This is the fun part, starting the process over again, this time not from zero with zero but, with some necessary skills and experiences. Setting goals and crushing them, learning new skills and improving current skills, innovating, earning more, and investing.
Learning helps you to find and create opportunities, innovate, and adapt to current trends which will improve your earning power and increase your net worth through savings and investments.
FINAL WORDS
It’s up to you to take responsibility for your life or leave it to chance, either way, you get the equivalent result.
The above steps are practical steps you could apply immediately, if you choose to take responsibility for your life and create a new beginning for yourself, transitioning from zero with zero to being and staying successful.
