“Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” is a great game show title because it’s a question everyone answers “YES!” to.

The more difficult question is “how do you become a millionaire?”  That’s the one we’re looking at in this post.

You’ve probably heard about the best way to eat an elephant, right?  The best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.

The same kind of thinking applies to becoming wealthy.  There’s really not much of a trick to figuring out how to become a millionaire.  It’s more about disciplining yourself to do the simple things that produce the desired result.  And doing them again and again.  Like eating an elephant, it’s a matter of repetition.

The core system to becoming a millionaire consists of pretty basic steps.  You can find those steps outlined and illustrated all over the web (I found them at Generation X Finance and Cash Money Life, for example).  In a nutshell, it looks like this:

• Earn money.
• Spend less than you earn.
• Save and invest the difference between your earnings and what you spend.
• Repeat the process.  Eat the elephant one bite at a time.

Seriously, if you want to know how to become a millionaire, that’s all you really need.  It’s a strategy that makes perfect logical sense and that has undoubtedly worked for countless people.

So, why isn’t everyone on the way to a seven-figure net worth?

It’s because each part of the process offers some tough challenges.  Earning requires employment.  Higher earnings makes it easier to hit the million dollar mark, but that requires training, experience, education, effort, etc.

Living within one’s means isn’t always easy, either.  Just look at the average American’s credit card balances if you doubt that.  Building and sticking with a budget is hard work.

Saving and investing wisely?  There’s a lot of good advice out there, but not everyone is ready to take it and to follow it.  Some people aren’t even willing to find it in the first place.

Repeating the process.  This is where it gets really messy for many people.  It is possible to eat an elephant one bite at a time, but most folks don’t have the patience to get the job done.  Elephant isn’t that tasty and we’re used to getting things done quickly.  Working, budgeting and saving aren’t much fun and we’re not used to waiting for a payoff.

So, now we have a good idea of how to become a millionaire.  We also have a strong idea as to why so many people fail to make hit the million dollar mark.

Where does that leave us?  To be honest, it deposits us in a rather ugly spot.  If you want to be a millionaire, you’re going to have to get dropped off at the intersection of Discipline Drive and Repetition Road.  And you’re going to need to be comfortable there.

You could win the lottery.  Your great Uncle could die and leave you several trunks filled with cash.  Those probably aren’t that likely, though.  That leaves you with one other route to being a millionaire.  

Earn, economize, invest, repeat.

That’s it.  Simple in theory, tough in practice.  But it’s worth the effort.

Being a millionaire will leave you with a greater sense of satisfaction than you could ever get from chowing down on a pachaderm!