I have always wanted to run a marathon. Doing so had been on my “to-do” list for a while, but I kept waiting for the perfect time to sign up (whatever that meant anyway). Last August, I decided 2023 would be the year to finally do it! And let me tell you, that perfect time or set of circumstances I kept waiting for, never came. But I am getting there – with a training plan. Most times you just need to start today, where you are, and that’s okay. Following a training plan has not been easy. You have to wake up every day and make certain choices that align with your end goal and the journey to get there. It takes discipline.
As I go through this process, I can’t help but find the similarities between my current marathon training plan and my financial plan. No matter where we are in life, the foundation of a financial plan is built with our goals in mind – those big dreams that we have about what we want for our future selves and how we will get there. Expressing those goals sometimes can feel scary or impossible, because we may not be there yet or because it just may be hard to picture. But that’s why financial planning, a goal-based investment approach, and a savings plan are important.
Following and sticking to a financial plan can be tough when the circumstances are not ideal (i.e. when there’s a lot of volatility in the stock market and uncertainty). It takes discipline and training our emotions and our minds to tune out the noise and go back to the reason why we have a financial plan in the first place – to follow it and adjust as our lives and goals evolve. Likewise, if you would have told me two weeks ago that I would be putting on a rain jacket to go for a 10K run at 8am on a rainy Sunday, I would have never believed you. But hey, I did :).
