A commitment to creating personal wealth is regularly a core driver of success for self-made millionaires. To operationalize their commitment, they generally specify how much is enough. This is their financial end goal. A few aspects of financial end-goal setting include:

• The need to avoid “shiny objects” that appear promising but are only distractions from their financial end goals.

• Determining meaningful milestones along the way to their financial end goals.

• Comfort in resetting their financial end goals higher as they get closer to reaching them.

While it’s certainly possible to become personally wealthy without it being an express goal, it’s much less likely to happen. By wanting money and understanding why, people are much more likely to become self-made millionaires.

They put themselves in the line of money: Simply put, some endeavors are more fruitful and rewarding than others. For instance, building a successful business is habitually more lucrative than being a social worker employed by a municipality. Along the same lines, being the boss usually gives a greater chance for personal wealth than working for somebody else.

Since most skills are portable, it only makes sense that self-made millionaires apply theirs in the situations offering the highest paybacks. Following this perspective means they pursue fields and initiatives that have the highest potential for outsize returns now and in the future. Having equity in a business, for example, is regularly the very best way to be positioned in the line of money.

What is very characteristic of self-made millionaires is that they “run the numbers.” Using meticulous calculations or an instinctive familiarity with the financials, self-made millionaires look at each initiative and derive projected returns. The following are three guidelines they tend to use for running the numbers:

• It’s easy to do, but they avoid falling in love with an initiative.

• Self-made millionaires always work and rework the assumptions.

• They are able to justify their assessments under various scenarios.

Critically, self-made millionaires tend to look at each business decision as a way to ensure staying firmly in the line of money, which generally requires running the numbers.

They use failure to improve and refocus: Failure is inevitable, so most self-made millionaires don’t worry about avoiding it. Instead they focus on learning from each experience and using the lessons to get an advantage the next time around.

Rather than obsessing about lost opportunities and getting discouraged, self-made millionaires study their failures and do all they can to prevent repeating missteps. Central to “using” failure is perseverance. When confronted by professional setbacks, self-made millionaires are often energized. The following are some aspects of the way they make failure an ally. Self-made millionaires …

• Autopsy their failures, evaluating what went wrong and why.

• Are brutally honest with themselves when evaluating the mistakes they make.

• Work diligently not to repeat the same mistakes.