Why Are Some People More Financially Successful Than Others?

This is a question that has puzzled many for decades. While there is no single answer, there are some common traits that many successful people share.

Below, we’ll explore some theories about financially successful people — and how you can develop these traits yourself to achieve your own goals.

They Persevere

Are you someone who persists through challenges despite difficulties, or do you tend to quit when faced with setbacks or adversity? Why do some people keep pushing to complete a task while others consistently don’t follow through and give up?

In his article “Perseverance: The Secret Sauce to Building Personal Wealth”, Nathan A. Krampe explains that perseverance is essential to financial success because

“along the path to success, you will fail at various steps. In short, failure is not an option — it’s a given!”

Therefore, to become more financially successful you have to anticipate that challenges and failures will arise, and persist through them.

He also attributes people who are able to persevere with having the ability to say to themselves “I can”, and believe it, rather than saying “I can’t” and giving up.

For some people, developing perseverance is difficult because for them the term is associated with pain and misery. A couple of ways of changing this and improving your perseverance levels are to:

• Always keep your end goal or the things you want to achieve at the forefront of your mind. This will help you overcome perceiving perseverance as drudgework or something negative. If you instead associate it with positive feelings, you’ll have a much better likelihood of success. For example, someone whose answer to the question of why they go to gym is “because it makes me feel good” is more likely to adhere to their fitness program.
• Accept that failure is part of the process and don’t be afraid of it. Perseverance is a cyclical process of trying, failing, and getting back up until you reach your goal. Perseverance is consistently saying “I can” each time you get back up.

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realise how close they were to…