Inactivity is the best activity when it comes to investing be it for advisors or investors. Whenever I say so, I am often asked that if I (investor) just have to stay put and do nothing then why do I need you. Most of the times it was difficult for me to explain my relevance to the investor. But a recent personal experience gave the answer to this million dollar question. Let me share that with you.
I can do it on my own
I have a back ache problem and 6 months back a friend advised that I should do yoga as it would help me strengthen my back and would even help me recover from the back pain. As per his advice I immediately enrolled myself for the yoga classes. I continued my classes for 2 months sincerely.
One fine day, I thought why should I go to Yoga class, I have anyways learnt asanas and will now continue it on my own. I can watch baba Ramdev and if need be watch the yoga exercises on you tube if necessary. Why should I spend money further on this and on top of it every morning I had to travel to attend that class which otherwise I could have managed at my own home. I thought best would be that I continue my yoga session at home itself.
Soon after I left the classes and started on my own, I continued for few days but then I lost my consistency. Someday I would do it for half an hour and some days I would skip. Getting up for yoga seemed very difficult. And when winters came, it almost became impossible. I started procrastinating myself and I knew something is going wrong.
Role of the Mentor/Advisor
What was very critical to heal my back pain was discipline and consistency but I just lost it. Even though I challenged myself but I failed to maintain the consistency. At last I thought its best to join the yoga class again. What became very clear to me is that role of that Yoga teacher wasn’t just to teach me yoga but to ensure that I am doing it consistently without fail. At the same time, he kept me on toes and was constantly watching me where I was going wrong. This wasn’t possible when I was watching baba Ramdev on television. He would not come and say that see this is where you are going wrong and this is how you should do it.
I could dodge the television tutor but I could not dodge the human tutor.
When it comes to personal finance, it’s no different. Maintaining self-discipline in tough times such as market fall or crisis in the economy or personal crisis etc. becomes impossible. And it’s only your advisor who can stop you from reacting in these tough times and at the same time ensure that you keep moving towards your goals without any deviation.
There’s no doubt that we can do things on our own but would we continue it is a definitely a question. In the end I would like to conclude by giving a small piece of advice that when you are planning for your financial goals don’t make the mistake of doing it all on your own; have an advisor who guide you and ensure that the consistency is maintained no matter what happens.
