I am impatient. One of actress Carrie Fisher’s famous quotes speaks to my soul: “Instant gratification takes too long.”
I’m getting valuable lessons in patience these days, thanks in large part to my fear of wasting money and making mistakes when working on our property in the Florida panhandle.
Undeveloped land is full of promise.
Here’s how I define promise lately: Mammoth projects that cost loads of money and can become enormous sources of gut-wrenching anxiety and aggravation.
Harsh, I know. I fight a constant battle with wanting everything done yesterday, and making a quick decision I’ll later regret.
We’ve been methodical in our decision-making regarding each step in the process of adding infrastructure. We finally got power run to the property in November- a huge accomplishment! The fear of wasting money has brought out the “measure twice, saw once” mentality in us. It has worked to our benefit. Each time we drive up for a work weekend, it seems we make another connection with someone who provides a service we need or knows of a service we might benefit from. And each time we realize we wouldn’t have made that connection had we been speeding through the decision-making process.
Warren’s Words of Wisdom
Few areas prove that patience pays off more effectively than investing for retirement.
“The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient,” Warren Buffett once said.
I’ve heard that patience is the most underutilized skill in investing. It can be challenging to exercise patience at times, particularly when you don’t feel in control. Pandemics, wars and high-tech innovations are just a few events that can cause wild market swings that heighten investors’ emotions. Events such as these can leave investors wanting to snatch their money out of the market and shove it in their mattresses, or it can prompt them to throw too much money into a single investment in hope of striking it rich.
Emotions are powerful at overriding sound reasoning sometimes. In those times, it’s great to have a financial advisor on your side to talk you out of acting in extremes when necessary.
Time in the market often trumps attempts to time the market. In other words, patience often pays off. If your financial advisor has created a financial plan, your goals and risk tolerance have been considered. Now be patient and give the plan a chance to work.
January 2024
