Building wealth requires the right mindset and attitude. Poor attitudes can hinder your finances, relationships, and career. They can prevent you from making the changes you desire in your life. Over time, your mindset and attitudes become characteristics that can propel you toward success or drag you to defeat. 

Successful people tend to share common characteristics. This blog will cover seven, though there are many more! To clarify, when we talk about the characteristics of wealthy people, we’re talking about more than just money. Ultimately, these characteristics represent someone experiencing an abundant life and enjoying their God-given ability to create.

Wealthy People:

• Accept Personal Responsibility
• Control What They Can Control
• Expect the Best
• Are Creative
• Design Their Future With Confidence
• Take Action
• Are Adaptable 

Before you try to develop these characteristics, you might need to uproot negative beliefs and mindsets. You can’t build on top of a faulty foundation. If you don’t have these characteristics of wealthy people, consider what you believe about each one deep inside.

For example, if you don’t feel like you can confidently design your future, why? Do you think that it’s selfish to create the life you desire? Perhaps you don’t have faith that your plans will come to pass. As you review this list, reflect on how you feel about each characteristic. If there’s an attitude you don’t embody yet, ask yourself why. Once you change your inward beliefs, your outer characteristics will follow.

7 Characteristics of Wealthy People

1. Accept Personal Responsibility

Have you ever caught your children doing something wrong? Kids tend to shift the blame. If you notice them with their hand in the cookie jar, they will try to blame someone else. They might even blame you for making such good cookies!

Many adults, unfortunately, also suffer from this blame-shifting syndrome. Many people lose interest in transformation when they find out they are personally responsible for making it happen. 

Wealthy people take responsibility for their time, talent, and treasure. They dedicate themselves to producing a return. When things don’t go their way, they don’t shift the blame on someone else. Instead, they own their mistakes and learn from them.

You can’t change the destination of your money overnight, but you can change the direction. Don’t criticize someone else for your financial situation. Regardless of your circumstances, you now have the power to choose what happens next. By accepting personal responsibility, you take the steering wheel to wealth building.

2. Take Personal Control

Once you’ve accepted responsibility, it’s time to take control. Being influenced by our peers and culture is easy. We are constantly bombarded with messages to be, think, or look a certain way. We are surrounded by marketing that tries to mold our spending decisions. For instance, our society tries to convince us that credit card debt is normal. And hey, you get 3 percent back!

Wealthy people take personal control over their spending and investing decisions. Their purchases are intentional; they don’t just set and forget their investments. They are constantly aware of how their money is moving, so they can change it when they don’t like the direction. 

3. Expect the Best

What are your expectations concerning wealth? Wealthy people expect the best and then invest their money based on those expectations. Control what you can and leave the rest to faith, believing in the best outcome.

Stress comes into your life when you don’t have anything to look forward to. When we don’t have a purpose for our money, we often waste it. Set financial goals that excite you, and take time to celebrate when you reach them! Expecting the best will keep you on track and make financial discipline feel fun rather than burdensome.

4. Be Creative

Everybody feels stuck from time to time. Wealthy people find creative solutions when they feel trapped and continue moving forward. The essence of business is creating solutions to problems nobody else has fixed. 

Genesis 1:27 says that we are made in the image of God, the creator of the universe. That means you have a God-given imagination that enables you to speak out and create the ideas in your mind.

History is full of people who dared to imagine physical things that had never before existed. These dreamers and inventors were laughed at, and many declared their ideas impossible. Yet, many of those ideas have become the inventions we enjoy today, such as the light bulb and the telephone. They only became realities because these dreamers were willing to exercise their imaginations.

5. Have Confidence to Design Your Future

One of the most telling characteristics of wealthy people is confidence. They identify their priorities and values. Then, they orchestrate their lives around what matters most to them. Have you ever asked yourself, “What is important to me?” Too many of us are living our lives for someone else. In order to design your future, you must not be limited by what other people think. 

You also need to find your purpose. What’s your “why”? To unearth your purpose for building wealth, identify what you desire in life and give specific direction to those desires. You have to discover your core values before you can identify your true desires. You must discover your ultimate goal in building wealth before you can truly build wealth. 

To help determine what is most significant to you, ask yourself these questions: 

• What would I do with my life if money were not an issue? 
• What do I want my tombstone to say about me? 
• What am I doing with my life that will live on after I die?

Your purpose is the strongest incentive for having the confidence to design your future. It’s like your physical appetite, except it functions on a spiritual level. Your appetite moves you effortlessly toward food, just as your purpose moves you toward the changes you need to make to fulfill your potential. When you meet resistance, your purpose will push you forward.

6. Take Action

When it comes to achieving your financial goals, starting is 50% of the battle. Wealthy people find opportunities and take action on their ideas. They know that money is more valuable today than it is tomorrow. Every passing minute is more time they could be earning interest!

Many people see what they need to accomplish, think about where they need to go, and dream about the possibilities but never take action. James 2:26 says, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” As with anything you do with God, partnering with Him in your finances requires faith. You must be willing to move out of your comfort zone and take action in new territory if you want to build wealth. 

Change only occurs when you begin to take action toward your desired goal. Your actions must be harmonious with your desired outcome. If you say you want to lose weight but keep visiting Dairy Queen, your efforts are not in harmony with your desired outcome. As a matter of fact, they are taking you in a direction contrary to where you want to go! You must bring your behavior in line with your desired change. If you can do this, you will be successful in any change you undertake.

7. Be Adaptable 

Albert Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. One of the main characteristics of wealthy people is that they are adaptable. They know when and how to pivot. The businesses that made it through the COVID-19 pandemic were the ones who changed with the circumstances by doing things like offering remote work, changing their shipping policies, or expanding delivery options.

Being adaptable is difficult. That’s why taking time with #5 on this list is so important. If you know your “why” and your purpose is strong enough, you’ll have the grace to do the work it takes to adapt.

Well, there you have it! I hope these characteristics of wealthy people motivate you to take the next step of faith in your wealth building journey. What characteristics would you add to the list? Let us know in the comments!