By ROB McGREGOR
HOLMAN McGregor Financial Services director and planner Rob McGregor shares his top reasons why so many of us fail financially.
When it comes to financial success, most people fail. No one sets out with that as the plan, but let’s have a look at some recent statistics from the ABS.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 25 per cent of people are forced to retire by circumstances including ill health or disability, while 10 per cent of people are forced to retire because they lost their job or can’t find work.
According to the figures, 44 per cent of people retire because they reach the pension age, which is now 67, and less than 10 per cent of people retire because they have enough money to live the life they want.
So why do most people fail? There are lots of reasons including leaving retirement planning too late, not having enough information or, more recently, too much information, plus distraction.
We also find people procrastinate, putting off their retirement planning, or spending time looking for get-rich-quick schemes, which usually end in get-poor-quick.
Others fail to make it a priority, don’t believe they can do it, get caught up working out why things won’t work, don’t take any action or they simply never get help.
So which reason is number one? For each of us, we might fall victim to any one of these reasons, and if we are really honest, a lot of us have fallen victim to more than one.
The top two, in my opinion, are the last two so let’s look at the last one first – not getting any help.
Nearly all successful sports people and businesses, without question, seek out professional help, whether you call that coaching, advice, or consulting.
Can you imagine the Broncos at the start of the season saying don’t worry coach, take the year off, we will look after ourselves?
We can imagine how that would turn out. It’s only amateurs that attempt to succeed without professional help.
But the number one reason people fail financially is the second last – not taking action. After all if you want to succeed financially and build enough assets for a long, comfortable, stress-free retirement, but you never actually do anything, you can’t actually get there.
All successful people have one thing in common – they take action.
Do all successful people succeed with every action? No, but they take action anyway, fail sometimes and learn from their failure and persist until they succeed.
So if you want financial success take some action today. Read a book, attend a seminar, or make an appointment with a good financial planner.
Rob will hold a seminar titled Free Pathway to Wealth on Tuesday 1 September at 5.45pm for a 6.15pm start. To reserve your seat and confirm the location phone 5449 7200.
