Ryan McLean : Slightly Unconventional

Well another year has come and gone. 2010 is here (well it is in Australia anyway). So happy new year to everyone. I hope that this year is going to be the best year of your life.

I am really starting to learn to power of focus. A few things happened last year that really taught me how important it is to focus on doing a few things well, instead of trying to do a lot of things poorly.

My Internet Income

At the start of last year I had the goal to earn a full time income online. The only thing is I didn’t really have a goal of how I was going to do that. I tried all sort of things. Affiliate marketing, blogging, article marketing, twitter, email marketing, flipping websites etc etc. This lack of focus gave me little to no success and left me extremely discouraged and I ended up dropping all of my make money online schemes that I was working on. Now instead of making money online I am paying money.

Worrying About Money

Last year I learnt about the negative impact when you are focusing on the wrong thing. Not too long after we found out that Kelly was pregnant I started stressing about money. I couldn’t see how we were going to have enough money when the baby came, and we could barely pay our bills as it was. I would spend day and night worrying about money and how I was going to generate more income.

Then one night when I was at work within the space of half an hour I lost almost all of my vision. I had all these white spots in my vision and I couldn’t see a thing. I was FREAKING out, I had no idea what was going on. I went straight to the doctors and half an hour and a splitting headache later the doctor told me I had a migraine caused my stress. Focusing on the wrong thing can do a lot of harm to your body. Not only that but I know that when I worry about money the relationship I have with my wife is stressed also.

Financial Freedom

In the last three months of 2009, I discovered Robert Kiyosaki’s book “Retire Young, Retire Rich”. It was at that point that I decided that instead of focusing on getting a huge income I would focus on financial freedom and learning to become financially free. I spent months devouring books and I went through the entire Robert Kiyosaki series. I learnt so much about investing and financial freedom.

I set myself the goal of becoming financially free in just 5 years. I had no idea how I was going to achieve it, but I set the goal none the less. This focus and determination on becoming financially free changed me completely (my wife will testify to that) and it was with this focus that I can within a nits tit (a very small distance) from purchasing a positive cashflow property that could have done wonders for our cashflow and our bank account.

What Will You Focus On This Year?

Last year I spent a lot of time focusing on a whole bunch of different things. I had no sense of direction and no direct focus. Now I know that my goal is financial freedom in 5 year that is my focus. Everything I do will be to move towards that. I have also set 3 goals for the year

• To purchase 3 positive cashflow properties
• To make the cashflow from my debt = $0/month
• To make the passive income I earn online equal to my online expenses

Now I have the focus on very specific goals for 2010. I don’t have 20 goals, and my goals aren’t vague. They are very specific and they have a very specific timeline (12 months). This allows me to focus on achieving just these things and I believe that through focusing I will see a great increase in my financial situation.