Are You Financially Fit?

Are you obsessed with your physical fitness and wellness? What about your financial fitness and wellness?

Health and wealth are closely related. If you focus mostly on one, the other will suffer. Your overall well being requires a balance between the two.

6 Steps to Achieve Financial Fitness

1. Start Small

Both financial and physical fitness require a measure of discipline. My experience in both domains suggests that small steps toward your aspirations are the best way to begin. If you’re behind in saving or investing, it’s a mistake to think you can solve this shortfall quickly. Don’t try to solve for perfection; solve for reality.

2. Define Success

Visualize what being financially fit represents to you. Does it mean that you have a written financial plan that you are following? Does it mean that you have a regular, systematic savings and investment plan? Does it mean that you’re debt free?

3. Stay Resilient

Ongoing discipline creates resilience within your financial life. Resilience in turn gives rise to confidence that you’re making decisions in your best interest. Confidence also helps you offset some of the inherent uncertainty always present within the investing environment.

Volatility and unpredictability are a constant part of the investing equation. Resilience and confidence help you avoid overreacting to surprises. Financial fitness allows you to look past the immediate scenario and put this in historical context. Being financially fit allows you to zoom out from today and prepare for tomorrow.

4. Maintain a Productive Attitude

Financial fitness and wellness is broader than just saving and spending. Being financially fit also requires a productive attitude toward your overall financial life that creates good behavior. That is, your actions should add to your financial future, while avoiding decisions that subtract from your financial wellness.

To achieve and maintain financial fitness you should realistically consider areas of your financial life that need attention. What’s most important to you? What’s your next action step?

5. Don’t Just Plan, Act

Inertia is the enemy of becoming financially fit, and intentional action is the antidote. Thinking about going to the gym won’t move you toward your physical wellness goals. Thinking about saving or investing won’t move the needle either. Only deliberate actions can break through the inertia.

6. Focus On What You Can Control

Worrying about 1,001 things in your financial life won’t do anything to make you financially fit. Instead of constantly worrying, focus on the inputs that you can control. You can’t control the day-to-day markets, inflation, or world events. You can control how well you stick to your financial plan.

Being financially fit pre-supposes a healthy level of self-awareness. You know better than anyone else on the planet what you’re able to do, and what’s unlikely.

The main benefit of becoming financially fit is that financial wellness makes you “shockproof.” You become immune to the constant drumbeat from the financial media, knowing that you have the resilience to stay the course. Start there. Ready for a real conversation?

Disclosure

Apollon Wealth Management, LLC dba J.E. Wilson (Apollon) is an investment advisor registered with the SEC. This document is intended for the exclusive use of clients or prospective clients of Apollon. Any dissemination or distribution is strictly prohibited. Information provided in this document is for informational and/or educational purposes only and is not, in any way, to be considered investment advice nor a recommendation of any investment product or service. Advice may only be provided after entering into an engagement agreement and providing Apollon with all requested background and account information. Please visit our website https://apollonwealthmanagement.com for other important disclosures.