Compounding the pavements: how small steps can lead to success
I’ve been considering taking part in Vanguard’s Tough Mudder competition. I love the idea of crossing the finish line and getting hit with that overwhelming dose of euphoria. I’ve run marathons in the past, so I know 5k wouldn’t be toochallenging.
I downloaded the Nike Running Club app. If you’ve not used this tool before, it includes guided runs to keep you motivated. Imagine an always-positive personal trainer from across the pond, shouting words of encouragement in your ear as you pound the pavements.
I put on my running shoes and embarked on a 12-minute run. I told myself it’d take longer to tie my laces and get out the door than complete the run itself. The coach told me that starting the run would be the hardest bit. He reassured me that my run would be worthwhile, no matter the distance. He was right. It’s far better to do five 12-minute runs over the course of a few weeks than to do one 30-minute run that’s so torturous that your new trainers are left to rot under the stairs.
But the more I thought about this message, the less interested I was in doing Tough Mudder at all.
I already had enough on my plate, so instead of putting pressure on myself to train for a competition, why not find contentment in the occasional 12-minute run?
You don’t always need an end goal
If you’ve never run before, going on a quick jog is better than not exercising at all. If you set out to do one 1-minute run each week, there’s a good chance you’ll naturally run a little further each time.
You don’t need to take part in a competition. You don’t even need an end goal. It’s okay to get enjoyment from the action itself. You’ll still finish it a slightly better person than you started.
If it’s been a while since you watched Forrest Gump, you might’ve forgotten that one day, for no particular reason, Gump decided to go for a run. He explained: “I ran to the end of the road and when I got there, I thought maybe I’d run to the end of town. And when I got there, I thought maybe I’d just run across Greenbow County. And I figured since I’d run this far, maybe I’d just run across the great state of Alabama.”
We see reporters jogging alongside him, holding microphones to his face and asking why he’s running. Was he running for world peace? The homeless? Women’s rights?
“I just felt like running,” he replied.
Forrest Gump crossed the country several times in three years, two months, 14 days and 16 hours before stopping suddenly, turning around, and going home. He didn’t have an end goal, but that doesn’t mean his journey was wasted.
The effects of compounding are even more impressive when applied to our finances. If you double a penny every day for a month, you’ll have more than one million pounds after just 28 days. If it was possible to double the length of your run every day for a month, you’d be running rings around Forrest Gump in no time.
You can only have so many priorities
One of the best things about not doing Tough Mudder is that I still have time and energy for the things that reallymatter to me. I can take the dogs on long walks, catch up with friends, support my parents, and go on the occasional run without finding myself exhausted in Arizona with a beard down to my chest.
But often the things that matter to us aren’t at the front of our minds. Often new clients come to me with requests to ‘retire a multi-millionaire’ or get to ‘X’ amount. This isn’t really what it’s all about. Financial planning is about personalising your financial journey to get a result that’s meaningful to you. That might be to retire a multi-millionaire but it might not.
Hearing this can sometimes come as a shock to people, but it can equally come as a relief. You may find that half of the goals on your list are driven by obligation rather than actual desire.
In the financial planning process we’ll strip back societal pressure and expectations, figure out what you actually want in life, and tie all the financial products together until we’ve got a roadmap in front of us, showing exactly how to get you from A to B.
Keeping things simple
No matter how intentional we try to be with our finances, we’re only human. Any of us can fall into a trap of spending money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, so we can become the person we want to be as quickly as possible.
But the expensive running shoes, energy gels and just about every accessory you can find on RunnersWorld.com won’t make you a runner. The only thing that’ll do that is putting one foot in front of the other and getting your heart rate up.
Similar repeatable behaviours are required for making progress with our finances too. If you want to retire a millionaire, you need to avoid the unqualified gurus offering quick wins and shortcuts. Instead, you need to work out what it is you really want first, then stick to the plan.
Avoiding such distractions can be challenging, especially when you’re faced with changes that aren’t within your control, such as stock market fluctuations, economic uncertainty or a brand new government.
It’s easy to forget that the secret to a comfortable retirement is tediously simple and surprisingly similar to becoming a runner.
All you need to do is put on your trainers (open an investment account), go for a run (put money in it) and repeat the process regularly (automate your investments). Oh, and while you don’t need to join Nike Running Club, you may get better results if you have an expert by your side to keep you motivated and cheer you on. Yes, I’m talking about me!