Discovering Your “Why” for Achieving Financial Independence

What is financial independence?  

Let’s start off by giving you a rough definition.  I’d say a good place to start is that financial independence is where you have enough money coming in through investments, passive income, or other non-work sources where it covers all (or most) of your basic needs and living expenses.  It’s effectively the point where you don’t need to work to meet all your needs.  Pretty sweet, right? ¹

Why is this so important?  

It’s important because when you hit this milestone, you don’t need to rely on anyone else to survive.  You’ve hit the point where you no longer need to trade your time and skills for money out of necessity.  There’s nothing that says you need to stop working, but you don’t HAVE TO work.  I’ll dive into a lot of topics on this blog about how to get here, but for now, I want to focus on the why.  Without a solid reason as to why you want to get to this place on your map of life, you’ll get stuck or rerouted when you hit life’s inevitable detours and potholes.  Your why is your compass as well as your fuel for your engine.  

What are my “why’s”?  

When I started out on the journey for financial independence, it was 10 years ago.  My wife and I had just joined a program to learn how to flip houses and we had to do an exercise about what our vision was for our future.  Here’s what I wrote…

“My vision is one of creating and living a life where I have complete control of the financial present and future of my family.  A life where I’ll have the freedom to challenge myself both personally and professionally.  A life where enjoying the moment is a top priority as well as one where I’m able to do all of this with the people I love.”

Reading that years later, that makes me smile.  It does a good job of capturing what I was striving for.  Also, embedded in there you can see some of my “why’s” that motivated me.  

• Control of my financial situation and not having to rely on others (IE: a job/company/boss)
• Freedom of time to spend it with my family and on the things I love to do.  This is achieved by the first part, control of my financial situation.  
• Freedom of choice to work and spend my energy on things that bring me joy.  

None of this is possible without financial independence.  That’s what is so powerful about it.  Once you control your finances, both income and expenses (don’t worry, we’ll dive into this a lot more in future posts), you then control your time.  And once you control your time, you control how your energy is spent and where, what, and with who that energy goes to.  

What are your “why’s”?  

Now it’s time to figure out what your “why’s” are.  I know it sounds fluffy.  I thought the same exact thing when I started out.  The reason that it’s important, is that these why’s are your reason for getting across the finish line.  They’re the reason why you put your phone down to keep working instead of scrolling aimlessly.  They’re the reason you get home from work and keep working on a side hustle to bring in extra income.  They’re what pushes you to keep grinding when you’re exhausted on a weekend after a tough week.  

These “why’s” are our superpower.  When you’re down, it gives you something to look back and reflect on.  You’d be surprised how often they help to motivate you to get one more thing done.  Finish that one task you’ve been putting off.  Make that one call you’ve been procrastinating on.  Go to that networking meeting that sounds horrible.  They get you over that hump and to the item on your list.  

I’ve created a simple worksheet for you to look at and to get you thinking about your why’s and what your motivation is for diving into this journey.  Give it a download and see where it leads you.  Leave a comment below if you have suggestions, questions, or thoughts on any of this.  

1. I’m not an expert so please know is is a rough definition. Check out this Wikipedia article for a more detailed look.