Being wealthy is not always about hard work, or even luck; sometimes all that is separating you from certain wealth is an attitude of mind. How often do you dream of being wealthy but feel that life, or other people, always gets in the way and stop it happening? Have you ever asked yourself whether your lack of wealth could be nothing to do with the outside world but down to you and you alone? Perhaps you should consider whether you actually have the right attitude to be wealthy?

Many of us are raised alongside a whole belief system about money and most of it is negative. Our parents and our grandparents often had to scrimp and save so that even a penny saved here and there was a minor triumph. Childhood was lavishly sprinkled with old sayings such as "…look after the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves" and we were taught to be thankful for our lot and there was even a kind of nobility in being poor.

So what about ingrained beliefs and the effect they can have on your attitude to acquiring wealth? Well there is no doubt at all that if you believe, even subconsciously, that you don’t deserve to be rich the chances are that you never will be. How many of the following money myths ring true to you?

There is something dirty about too much money

Money is the root of all evil

I don’t deserve to be rich

Money always corrupts

Your friends disappear if you become rich

It’s bad form to talk about money – especially if you have a lot

I’m the wrong sort of person to be rich

Only corrupt people make money

Rich people are never happy

OK so if you believe all, or even some, of these wild generalisations you are immediately denying yourself any chance of becoming wealthy or of even being very comfortably off. Why? Because to become wealthy you have to weigh up and seize every opportunity that comes your way, take risks and above all believe in yourself. How can you possibly do all that if you are racked with guilt or the feeling that by acquiring riches for yourself you become no better than all the people you were brought up to despise.

If this is your problem you need to solve it both quickly and soundly or you will never climb on that first rung to riches. Remember wealthy people have none of these troublesome beliefs, which are more or less exclusively the burden of the poor.

Change your thinking today and tell yourself you are going to be wealthy, that money can be a force for great good and that it is perfectly alright to want money; and what is more you are going to work hard to get it. Then watch your fortunes change for the better!