# Money Does Not Buy Better Habits

Source: https://www.theminimalists.com/money-habits/
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2024-06-12
Author: Joshua Fields Millburn

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I’m not averse to earning money. That would be silly. I am, however, much more concerned with outcome than income.

A common mistake we tend to make is that we often assign [money](https://www.theminimalists.com/money/) as our primary driver of happiness: *If I make $X, then I’ll be happy*.

Once this happens though—once we earn $X—we quickly discover that the equation is broken. There is, after all, a reason why most lottery winners end up [broke](https://theminimalists.com/broke): bad habits. Besides, there are plenty of miserable millionaires and countless [happy poor folks](https://theminimalists.com/rich).

A much better conductor of individual contentment, then, has little to do with money: our [daily habits](https://www.theminimalists.com/triggers/). Said another way, the outcome of better habits is more rewarding than your income will ever be.

You see, we have a much better chance of radically improving our happiness by just changing our habits—by forming new, empowering daily rituals. And we needn’t earn exorbitant amounts of cash to do so.

High income or no, we must [avoid passivity](https://www.theminimalists.com/productivity/) in favor of active, engaged, deliberate tasks. We must acknowledge our [mistakes](https://www.theminimalists.com/mistakes), make the right direction-changing [decisions](https://www.theminimalists.com/deciding/), and then take incremental actions each day. Over time, as we move farther in [the right direction](https://theminimalists.com/direction), we’ll be able to wave at our bad habits in the rearview, happy and content, driving toward a more meaningful [horizon](https://www.theminimalists.com/horizon/).

This is all, of course, [not as easy](https://theminimalists.com/freedom) as it sounds. But, then again, it’s simpler than you may think.

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