By: Douglas J Utberg

There are many people throughout the country who have experienced considerable financial difficulty in the past few years and are looking for an opportunity to regain some lost ground.  For these people, it is important to think like a warrior.

The defining characteristic of a warrior’s mindset is their determined focus on the next challenge that needs to be overcome.  The key difference comes from the way that these challenges are defined.  Some choose to “Major in the minors” and focus on small problems.  These people frequently find that many big things move past them while the objects of their focus are being attended to.

There are other people who consistently move their bar of personal achievement to higher and higher levels.  Some people view life in terms of what they ‘can’ or ‘can not’ afford while others think in terms of what trade-offs must be made to achieve their goals.  Some view their circumstances as the result of events that are beyond their control.  (Frequently blamed on “The Man”)  Others view themselves as the master of their fate and the captain of their destiny.

The ultimate realization that warrior minds come to is that their success must be built on a sequence of progressive challenges that move them to higher levels of achievements.  Another key insight is that the warrior mind will not be satisfied by “taking it easy” once their previous vision of success has been achieved.  This is what drives many highly successful people to continue their endeavors far beyond the point where their financial needs are satisfied.  These people are not working for the money anymore, but the challenge of greater achievement.

Once the warrior mindset is understood and internalized, it becomes quite apparent that the key to living a full and complete life is to undertake challenges that span both personal and professional endeavors.  Many people have fallen into the trap of excessively focusing on their career and excluding their family.  The opposite extreme of giving up on professional achievement and simply ‘marking time’ to earn a paycheck is no less appealing.  Both produce imbalance, and neither are desirable.

Fully embracing a warrior mindset requires the realization of a driving passion that will motivate our actions and inspire achievement.  Fully understanding the importance of new challenges leads the truly successful to approach their lives as a broad spectrum of challenges in both the personal and professional context.  Ultimately, it is the challenges that we choose to pursue and the way that we choose to prioritize them that will create constructive success or destructive failure.