Difficult Task Question?
What made you stop planning/researching financial independence and actually start?Was there a tipping point for you where you finally felt ready to start your journey? What made you finally take the plunge, open that first Business or Investment., and throw your money into the market?
This question seems innocuous, right? Yet, I've been thinking about it for the past 24 hours. I hear questions like this relatively often. People want to know how to get started with saving and investing. Or with debt reduction. Or they want to know how to get started with budgeting. And, in fact, it's the sort of question I had too back when I started my own journey away from debt and toward financial freedom. It all seems so overwhelming! Where do you begin? Trust me, I know how easy it is to over-complicate things.
Today, let's talk about what I've learned so far about how to get started with difficult tasks.
Action Not Words
Generally speaking, things aren't as complicated as I (or you) want to make them out to be. Most problems can be solved with simple solutions. It's how we implement these solutions that adds layers of complexity. A healthy weight, for instance, really is as simple as “calories in, calories out”. Yes, I realize there's a lot of debate about this subject in recent years. And yes, I understand there's additional nuance and complexity to the discussion. But that doesn't change the fundamentals: If you want to lose weight, you have to burn more calories than you consume.Likewise, all of personal finance boils down to one simple rule: To build wealth, you must spend less than you earn. End of story. This is the fundamental rule of personal finance, and all of the books and blogs and TV shows about money — all of the added layers of complexity — are simply clothes draped across this basic body. When I see questions like “How do I get started toward financial independence? It all seems so complicated!”, my mind immediately goes to this. How do you get started? By spending less than you earn. Want to get out of debt? Spend less than you earn. Want to save for a down payment on a house?
Spend less than you earn. It all comes back to this one idea. Any move that increases your income or decreases your spending is a step in the right direction. In a way, allowing perceived complexity to prevent you from doing the right thing is a variation of the optimization trap. The optimization trap is the belief that small tweaks make more difference than they actually do.
Optimizing small things (clipping coupons, say) is often a way for people to feel like they're doing something meaningful when they're actually avoiding big, scary moves that could truly make a difference (downsizing their home, for example). When people like me over complicate things at the start, we're doing so for similar reasons. We're nervous about making big changes.
We're complacent. We're comfortable with our lives at the moment, so instead of doing the things we know need to be done, we spin our wheels while focusing on details that don't matter. Right now, for instance, I am fat. There's no way to sugarcoat it. I've been gaining weight for several years now, and thanks to this quarantine, I've reached peak J.D. (in terms of size, anyhow).
I know what I need to do to get fit again — eat less, exercise more — but I find it very easy to allow stupid details to prevent me from doing the right thing. “My bike needs a new tire. I don't have weights at home and the gyms are closed. I don't like vegetables. I don't know which tool to use to track my calories.” All of these details are bullshit that distracts me from the fundamental problem: I need to burn more calories than I consume, and I'm not doing that.
If I want to get started with weight loss, I must achieve (and maintain) a calorie deficit. If you wants to reach financial independence, (s)he must spend less than (s)he earns. In both cases, thinking and deliberating does nothing. To achieve our goals, we must take action. Start Where You Are For over thinkers like me, action is key. Instead of finding the perfect time and place to start, we should start anywhere.
Screw perfection! When starting a long journey, a perfect first step isn't critical. If you stumble at the start of a sprint, you're likely to lose the race. But if you stumble at the start of a marathon, it makes no difference. All that matters is that you've begun running. As my friend Paula Pant once told me, “An imperfect plan you follow is better than a perfect plan you don't.”
One of the core tenets of the Get Rich Slowly philosophy is that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Too many people never start putting their finances in order because they don't know what the “best” first step is. Most of the time, “best” is irrelevant in this context.
Don't worry about getting things exactly right — just choose a good option and do something to get started.
Thoughts
This word is from j.d roth thank you for the inspiration. I'm currently on that moment building wealth, getting out of debt making, starting, discovering ways of passive income. Its been a roller coaster ride but you are right. It only needs to get started.
Moving forward learn from mistakes besides when your down the only way there is, is going up
