Which of these options would you choose? 

One: having plenty of money, or two: having plenty of money plus good health, wonderful relationships with family and friends, a lovely home, and personal peace? 

While that may seem like a silly question, many people make money their top priority and allow the other aspects of their lives to fall by the wayside. This is obviously not a healthy choice. 

In this post, we’ll explore how reordering your life priorities will bring true wealth by every measure. We’ll look at faith-based wisdom about money matters, and discuss the “Six Pillars of Wealth” – fitness, people, space, faith, work, and yes, money. 

By the end, you should have a deeper understanding of how to build a truly affluent life. Sound good? Then let’s dive in and put you on your path to total well-being – we’ll start with fitness. 

Get fit, mentally and physically. 

Imagine if your greatest desire were to be granted this very moment, would you be up for it? 

While it might sound awesome to be granted your dream job or perfect partner, would you really be able to be at your best? After all, you can’t enjoy or contribute your best to any aspect of life if you’re in poor mental or physical health. 

Consider this example from Patrice Washington’s own experience. Early in her career she’d occasionally felt unwell but had put off going to the doctor. When she had to go to the ER after a bout of food poisoning, the examination revealed she had extremely low levels of hemoglobin. While an infusion helped her, it was a lesson on how putting off a routine physical could have created a deadly situation. If she’d been in an accident with her blood hemoglobin so low, she might have died. Not only that, the condition had been contributing to fatigue and fertility issues which were blocking life experiences important to her. 

In short, her body was preventing her from living the life she wanted – even if the opportunity had presented itself. 

Just as with your body, your mind must be fit to reach your full potential. You need confidence in yourself to fuel determination and you can’t enjoy your journey or success, not to mention handle setbacks, without mental strength. One method that might help you transform your mindset is to use positive affirmations. 

Positive affirmations take advantage of neuroplasticity, your brain’s ability to create new, goal-focused thought patterns that can rewire around old, negative ones. Here’s how you use them. Come up with some positive statements about yourself and your goals and then repeat them consistently. You could start with the phrase, I am a focused person who does amazing things. That could be a mantra you repeat in your head, put in writing through journaling, or say to yourself in a mirror. Do this enough and you’ll start developing a more positive mindset. 

Caring for your mind also means taking charge of your mental health and taking whatever steps necessary to head it off or address it. While having negative feelings, trauma, and grief are common experiences, when unmanaged they can contribute to mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and substance abuse, to name but a few. To practice mental wellness, start by identifying your emotions and allowing yourself to feel them. Then work through them in productive ways, such as journaling, support networks, and therapy. 

Invest in your relationships. 

Cultivating strong relationships positively impacts your home life, personal development, and professional opportunities. Start with your family and inner circle, then work outward, examining what you’re bringing to each relationship and who you’ve chosen to surround you. If you find shortcomings, you have the power to correct them. Let’s look at a few ways you can do this. 

First, give people the gift of really listening to them. In a 2018 survey by Capital One, more than half of the participants said they didn’t believe the people in their daily lives actively listened when they speak. Be the exception by showing you’re truly attentive and engaged when others speak, and don’t try to fake it. Washington retells how her child called her out for not listening when she responded positively while listening to a negative story.  

Learn to set boundaries and say no to avoid overextending yourself or not showing up as fully as you should. Along that same line, show others you value their time, too. Make a point to be punctual and not the person who’s always late – and that goes for personal and professional commitments, too. 

As you’re strengthening relationships with those closest to you, take a hard look just outside that sphere at the people who’re the next most influential in your daily life. Do they share your values, mindset, and goals? If you haven’t surrounded yourself with like-minded people, go find them. This creates a network for sharing information, accountability, and finding mentors – all invaluable toward achieving your goals and helping others along the way. To begin building these relationships, join mastermind groups, professional organizations, and online communities focused on your industry and passions. When you make connections, always start on the right foot by giving first and often with no expectation of return. Simple ways to give include commenting on social posts, writing positive reviews, or sending thank-you notes. Even the smallest acts of sincere gratitude go a long way. 

Taking time to tend to your relationships in thoughtful, genuine ways brings abundance. When you operate from a position of give-and-receive versus a transactional give-and-take, you‘ll always feel supported – and are much more likely to get tangible support when you truly need it or least expect it. 

Create space for success. 

As you strengthen the network of people around you, you need to consider the rest of your surroundings. The path to success requires creating organized and pleasant spaces, including your office, home, and calendar. The state of your surroundings not only reflects the order – or chaos – of your life but also the standards you think you deserve. 

To make room for what you want to see, get rid of the things you don’t. Start by clearing a small space, like tossing unmatched socks from your sock drawer. Even the tiniest satisfaction from creating a new efficiency like this creates momentum – first to keep going with other small spaces and then entire rooms. 

Once you’ve decided what you want to keep in your home, give everything a home. According to one study, the average American spends two and a half days per year looking for misplaced items. Based on your life expectancy, you can do the math for how much time you could gain for doing anything else but searching for things. 

Next, make your newly organized spaces ones that motivate you. Bring in elements that inspire, focus, and comfort you. Start with your work space and envision what it should look like for the person you aim to be. 

Early in her journey, Washington looked around her office and realized it looked more like a laundry and exercise room than the work space of the six-figure-earning business owner she aimed to be. She reconfigured the room so she could start each day stepping into a space that was suited to who she was becoming. 

Take the same approach by rethinking and redesigning spaces with intentional additions to make your home a comfortable, restful place to recharge. You may be thinking, I just got rid of a lot of things. How is it useful to bring in more stuff? 

The key with this approach is to add things that are sensory yet don’t take up valuable space, such as playlists of favorite music, candles or flowers in a signature scent, and pretty hand towels. 

Allow faith to guide your journey. 

As you pursue an abundant life, you need to stay the course to pursue your purpose, make your values clear, and stay focused on your goals amid inevitable setbacks. Faith, the fourth pillar of wealth, is essential to accomplishing these things. 

Throughout her career, Washington has made it clear that her faith is Christianity. At the same time, she emphasizes that faith in this context isn’t limited to a specific religion but the act of believing in a higher power to guide your purpose, strengthen your resolve, clarify your values, and determine how you present yourself to the world. 

If you’ve not yet defined your faith, why not explore different religions and spiritual teachings to discover what resonates with you? While there are many, all provide principles, beliefs, and values that provide guiding support to keep you motivated in good times and bad. 

You can build on your faith by keeping these beliefs front and center in your daily journey through consistent prayer, meditation, or journaling. Create a space specifically for these activities, ask friends to join you in prayer, and make time for in-depth study of the teachings of your chosen faith whenever possible. 

By doing this, you’ll bring a powerful belief system into your own personal values, and your mindset and actions will shift to confirm them. For example, Washington believes the Bible’s promise that when people are using their God-given gifts, opportunities appear. With that in mind, she always speaks from a place of awareness of her own gifts and then lives in “expectancy” for the opportunities to follow, while surrendering the details of the outcomes to her own higher power. 

Besides building and practicing your faith in these ways, you should also show your faith outwardly through your actions. Clearly demonstrate your values and beliefs in how you behave in personal relationships, conduct business, and carry yourself with dignity. Be transparent about who you are and in telling your entire story. People need to hear more than just the fact you overcame adversity to reach success. The teaching example is usually in how you got there. 

Love your work. 

Consider a person who is truly passionate about becoming a successful rapper and has spent decades practicing, networking, and pouring both energy and money into self-funded projects. But while everyone has gifts, rapping isn’t theirs, and passion isn’t paying the bills. It’s also kept them from discovering and using their true gifts to help others, make money, and stop struggling. There’s no reason to dump rapping as a hobby (OK, unless they’re really, really bad). Regardless, they definitely should take a pause to reevaluate all they’re giving up by not pursuing other opportunities. 

First, identify your gifts by considering what comes naturally, draws others to you, and brings feelings of fulfillment and inspiration. 

Then, consider who you are called to serve in life and how so. That’s your purpose. Write it down. Repeat it frequently. 

The next step is to figure out how you can use your gifts to fulfill your purpose. This will help you identify your calling. 

Last, find a way to do it all in a professional culture, environment, and schedule that perfectly fits your values and lifestyle. Clearly define what your ideal job and work day would look like, and get to work going after it. 

If you can, find ways to practice aspects of your ideal job and work day in your current role. Seek opportunities to volunteer. Attend networking events with clear goals about the connections you want to make, and share your purpose when you do. These are among several purpose-driven approaches that bring opportunities to increase your earnings with ease. 

When opportunities arise, don’t be afraid to negotiate a payment that matches the value you offer. Do your research to ensure your request is fair in comparison to your industry and market, and ask for more when it’s merited. Accepting a payment less than what your time and effort are worth to you can quickly diminish what you may otherwise consider a perfect job. 

Attract and manage money with ease and grace. 

There’s no mistake that money comes last in the six pillars. As we’ve discovered in examining the five pillars of wealth – fitness, people, space, faith, and work – not only does money matter less when any of them are off-balance but ensuring that balance is also essential to attracting and enjoying material wealth. 

When you’ve found that balance – and you can work on improving your material wealth – you should begin with developing a wise money mindset. This means making the decision that even in times of adversity, you’ll persevere. It requires you to rework your own beliefs about money to reflect a life of possibility and reject any limiting beliefs that may have been imposed on you early in life. And, you should also commit time and energy to practices that reinforce this mindset, such as affirmations and faith in positive outcomes. 

Next, tackle your personal finances, starting with owning any bad spending habits you already know you’re making, like supporting a designer-bag habit you can’t afford or rolling over financing for new cars every year. Since this type of behavior usually arises from an unmet psychological need, such as admiration or respect, you may be able to resolve it by seeking out a financial therapist. 

The most critical step for making wise money decisions moving forward is to create a detailed budget showing your recurring expenses, what money you have coming in, and all the money that goes out each month, including credit purchases. You’ll be able to see your financial picture, where to cut back or reallocate, and possibly the need to find new income streams. Without this information, it’s impossible to set smart strategies for saving, paying off debt, and giving to others. 

As your financial picture improves, bear these principles in mind: Continue to educate yourself on money matters. Maintain strong boundaries in relationships when you sense others may be taking advantage of your material wealth. And finally, be as generous as you can, but don’t allow your generosity to detract you from pursuing your own purpose. 

True wealth means more than just having a lot of money. It means achieving overall well-being, which includes maintaining good health and strong relationships, keeping organized spaces and schedules, living in faith, and doing purposeful work. By using the strategies outlined in this post, you can achieve balance in all of these areas to redefine wealth for yourself and set an example for future generations to do the same.