Achieving financial freedom is not a hundred meters dash. It is a marathon. Financial freedom is much more than quitting your day job. It involves living in a realm above financial worries. If you are still grappling with personal financial issues or still working for money, it does not matter whether you are an employer or self employed, you are yet to attain financial freedom.

There is no easy road to financial freedom. The path is riddled with potholes. Sometimes, things do not go as planned. More often than not, there is a big world of difference between planned and actual. Reality sometimes springs some nasty surprises.

You need to know upfront that things will very likely not go as planned. Sometimes it does. You need to be ready to give all it takes, and to pay the price. If you desire financial freedom hard enough, you will find in yourself the inner strength to rise up each time you stumble. Success does not just happen. If you believe the pop up ads on financial freedom that assault you online, you can believe anything. Nothing valuable and enduring comes easy. There is nothing like increase without labor (physical, mental or both). It is a basic law of nature. If you attempt to violate this principle, you are on your own.

When things go wrong, it is a good time to stop and re-evaluate what you are doing.

You may be doing something wrong. Go over your processes and make amends. Read up some more and acquire more skills and techniques. Work smart. Pure hard work does not take you far these days unless you work smart. Continuous improvement is the key. Get better by the day. A setback is a good opportunity to learn. Success makes you feel cool; you are doing just fine. Failure or setback sends you right back to school. You come out stronger and wiser.

You may be heading the wrong way. No matter how far down the road you go, if you are on the wrong road, the only way home is to turn off and retrace your steps. Get the correct road map before you proceed. If you find out further down the wrong that you are using the wrong map, shut down and begin again. You may have wasted a lot of time, energy and resources on a wrong venture. As painful as it is, your best way forward is to cut your losses and call it a day. Start afresh, on the right path this time. Who you are and where you are going is the major determinant as to what the right path for you is.

It may even be that you are on the right path, doing the right things. Hang on there. Dont give up. You dont know how close you are to a breakthrough. Sad stories abound of people who gave up just before dawn. If you are on the right path doing the right things, then keep on keeping on. You may not see the results from where you are standing. It does not mean that you are not making progress; its just that it is not obvious to you, or those around you. Keep at it. Your progress curve may be going flat, dont give up. You have to go through midnight before you hit dawn. When you cannot see beyond your nose, it is quite tempting to throw in the towel and return home. See it through to the finish line.

Dont lose sight of your dream, dont allow circumstance make you lose focus and go looking for a short cut or quick fix. Easy come, easy goes. Stay true to yourself. The experiences you go through in the journey and the person you become after going through the process is much more important than the destination itself. Nothing satisfies more than being yourself, who you were born to be.