1. Develop a written financial plan

Saying you want to be wealthy isn’t good enough. You need to come up with a workable plan and put it on paper.

“The written plan forces you to do something,” says Stewart Welch of The Welch Group in Birmingham, Alabama.

“Calculate what you need to earn and how to invest. The plan isn’t just the goal, it’s the whole thing — the dream, the goals, the options.”

The options, he adds, are “scenario planning” — all the ways you can accomplish that goal, such as opening a Roth IRA or contributing to a 401(k).