It’s funny how changing seemingly simple things in life can accumulate into one big tidal wave of change. This is the way I feel about my journey to FI. I am a numbers, excel, insane researcher type of a guy.
I analyzed the crap out of this would be new venture I would embark on one day.
- I researched my 401k funds, expense ratios, average returns.
- Opened up a Roth IRA. Researched those funds, expense ratios, average returns.
- Opened up the good-ol excel sheet and actually tracked my monthly expenses.
- Found various ways to reduce spending and save more money.
- Started travel hacking and accumulating those sweet, sweet, Chase ultimate reward points.
Even after all these changes, which is an awesome feeling by the way, the most important change was the one I didn’t research.
The one change that I didn’t know I was even looking for, ending up finding me instead.
That change is MINDSET!
Even though I’m at the very start of my FI journey, with a possible FI date in 10-15 years, this gradual mindset change has given me SUPERPOWERS! (Excuse me while I go put on my superhero costume)
Now we’re ready…
Becoming a FI-Hero
I may not be able to shoot lasers out of my eyes or run around the world in a couple of minutes, but I have secured the power of a retirement on my terms.
Setting up automation in the sense that money is automatically pulled out of my paycheck to fund my 401k and HSA each year. As well as money being pulled out of my checking account to automatically go to a savings account to max out my IRA.
Ramit Sethi has a great article on the power of Automating your Personal Finances.
Knowing that I can still save more on top of that, but just aiming for the goal of maxing out those retirement accounts nets me the assurance that early retirement will become inevitable.
This sense of security has given birth to…
Confidence
The future will always remain a mystery and I haven’t quite mastered the superpower of precognition. Still, setting up my options now to give me the best chance at providing me a future that I can plan. This means saving for retirement now, right now, will snowball into an avalanche of a nest egg.
This feeling of security gives you exactly that. Knowing that doing this is something right, gives you confidence in just about every facet of your life. This mindset allows you to not focus on the money while working and you start enjoying your job for what it is and not just the paycheck you receive every month.
This has an additional superpower of letting job promotions and raises come to you naturally instead of crashing through anyone and everyone to get that job growth we seek.
This slowly morphs into a ball of super juices to provide you with a better sense of…
Self
To accelerate that nest egg, your minds intuitive nature starts processing without any conscious effort, all the things you could do differently. With the power of our minds, without reading any self-help book, you do the most important thing of all.
Evaluate your life.
Look deep inside and find what gives you joy, happiness, and most importantly growth.
Question anything and everything you currently are doing. Identify what is working and what can be changed.
HerFI and I did this recently when deciding 5 things to stop buying last month. You can see the video here –> 5 Things We Stopped Buying This Month
That cable that drains your paycheck each month? Gone! What does this leave you? Well, money. Something more important though is the extra time it leaves you. This extra time has led to me creating a blog and writing this post right here and now. No longer the distractions of mindless TV binging for the sake of filling that void in time.
Not to say I don’t watch TV anymore, who doesn’t love themselves some Game of Thrones? I only watch shows that I truly enjoy.
These ideas started out small but each one holds power. That power is..
Action
“When you get in your head, you’re dead!” – Tony Robbins
Takings the steps to reach into that brain of ours and wrench out each idea into something tangible, something real, an action. Stop thinking and start doing! Information paralysis? Overload? Shoot it with a shark with frikken laser beams!
Make it a goal or better yet bring in your partner to take action together. Take a peek at what we do for Goal Setting as a Couple.
Actions are a mindset, in the sense that it takes a conscious effort to do something. What’s one thought in your mind right now? Yank it out and take action, get out of your head.
What I am getting at here is this FI started out as an idea after an accumulation of podcast listening and blog reading. What got me from then to here is not what I learned, it’s what I did.
Not to say to stop learning, it takes a combination of everything to take that first step. Once you do take that step it leads to something even more amazing…
Change
That action, that first step, from the accumulation of thought, has created a physical reaction. A combustible, unstable, chemical overload. We changed from the state before to the state now.
This new state is more powerful than Superman, faster than The Flash, and crazier than The Joker. It provides new and never ending possibilities which allows the continued adventure of growth. For should you stop growing, you will start shrinking.
Normally I end with a call to action. It actually seems quite fitting for a post like this. Today though I want you to think of what feeling was invoked in you by reading this. Don’t just go back to Facebook and zombie mind it up with meaningless shit. Take that ONE moment we all need to take every day and actually acknowledge why you are even reading a blog about financial independence or changing a mindset. Go back to that feeling that you felt pulsing in your very being.
Own it
Know that taking an idea into action is like face punching a stone wall. That first smack hurts like hell, the second cuts open your forehead, and the third one knocks you out and on your ass.
The decision you make in that moment of waking up is what determines your future. Do not just walk away and give up, you head butt that damn wall till it cracks, snaps, and crumbles.
Change isn’t easy, you have to set your mind, no, let your mind accept the fact that you will have to follow through with this change every single day. Change is a habit, relearning how you go about your day to day.
Take that thought, turn it into action, see yourself change, then make it a habit so you keep on keeping on. You got this!
