On your journey to becoming a millionaire, avoiding certain behaviors is essential, or you’ll sink your efforts. You’ll be trying to fill your bank account with a leaky bucket.
Let’s now discuss the actions that millionaires don’t take.
1. Don’t Accumulate Dumb Debt
Debt is a double-edged sword. You can spend more money than you have and achieve wild growth. Or you can stumble into a pit of misery, stuck in debt for decades.
Student loans, for example, are one of the most common debt vehicles today. Many current and future millionaires have suffered from student debt. Why? Because education kickstarted their growth as nothing else could.
While some student loan debt is dumb, most people find their student loans manageable and worthwhile. Trading education for some debt was a good deal. But credit card debt is rarely worth it. It’s dumb debt. Purchasing consumer products with credit card debt is not millionaire behavior.
2. Don’t make rushed decisions.
Remember when we said that “time is on your side”? That idea applies to more than just long-term investments. Millionaires realize that big decisions require significant time commitments. And how to become a millionaire is a big question to answer! It’s not something to rush.
Millionaires rely on well-researched decisions, rarely succumbing to hasty, irrational choices. What’s one example of a foolish choice? Millionaires don’t follow the crowd.
According to author Tom Corely, the millionaires he has interviewed tend to separate themselves from “the crowd.” They don’t make decisions based on popular choices. Why? Because popular opinion is often wrong!
3. Don’t Be Stagnant
Millionaires seek growth in both their personal and financial lives. They aren’t stagnant. Millionaires are constantly striving to learn new skills and expand their knowledge base. They don’t settle for the status quo.
And in their finances, millionaires understand the balance between risk and reward. They don’t use a savings account other than for their emergency funds.
In general, the most impactful rewards come from taking the biggest risks. But there’s a “risk-adjusted” way to measure those rewards. Millionaires often strike a healthy balance between risk and reward.
Even if somehow this advice doesn’t land you in the millionaire club, think of where you’ll end up. You’ll be a reasonably wealthy, high-earning, low-spending, self-invested, self-improving, perseverant, consistent, and conscientious person who avoids debt, doesn’t rush decisions, and never settles.