I often find myself thinking, “If I can’t go all in, then, I’ll do nothing at all.”
Do you ever think, “Well, I can’t do that so I guess I’ll just do nothing at all”?
Here’s a glimpse inside of my head sometimes:
Thought: I don’t have time to get an hour workout in
Action: I blow off the gym and instead of something, I do nothing…
Thought: I don’t have the time to cook a healthy meal
Action: I instead crack open the chips and salsa. It would be easy to toss a quick salad, but I’ve convinced myself it’s best to eat stuff out of the bag
I mean seriously, this makes no sense. Isn’t it better to get in a 20-minute workout than zero minutes? Or take the time to make a quick meal than snack on crap? It’s as though if I can’t go BIG, I might as well not go at all.
So, I convince myself that tomorrow is the day. So, I’ll wait for tomorrow.
This is what I call “waitsville.” Where we find ourselves living in a perpetual state of waiting. And (subconsciously) thinking that our future self will have more time, energy, and money than our current self to tackle the things we don’t have the time, energy, or money to do today. Talk about delusion!
Our current self, who has the workouts and healthy meals on wait for the future self to take over, is only hurting our future self! It means our future self will likely weigh more and feel worse. And, our future self won’t be too happy with our current self when he or she steps on the scale a year from now. Or, gets a doctor’s report that’s concerning.
And, that’s just to do with our health. What about money?
I find that the same reasoning applies. We think, “if I can’t save and invest 20% of my income, I might as well ‘wait’ until I have more to be able to do so.”
Does that day ever come? Where you ARE making enough to save enough? The answer is usually “no.” Regardless of all those pay raises?
Those unwanted pounds add up over a slow and long period of time. In other words… it’s over time that we become healthy or unhealthy. And, it’s over time that we become wealthy, or not.
It’s the small micro habits that make us healthy, wealthy, and happy. Not waiting for the big wins. Especially with money. Because time is what creates wealth. It’s called the Compounding Effect. It’s where you use the time to make yourself rich. And, if you have enough time (and take advantage of it) then, you can have all of the wealth you want for your future self.
So, tell your current self to get started! No more waiting!! It’s time to start with the micro habit of investing called micro-investing ;). I promise, although at first, it doesn’t appear to make a difference, once you start seeing the bucket (slowly but surely) grow, you’ll get hooked and wonder why you “waited” so long.
Takeaway: It’s better to start small when it comes to investing, than wait to start at all.
Let’s look at a real spectrum:
But we act as if this is what we see:
Let’s stop acting as if there is no “in-between,” Because, as illustrated above, there absolutely is an in-between.
Something is (almost) ALWAYS better than nothing.
What’s your next move out of “waitsville?”
Comment and let me know!
