What is Common for Personal Finances and Body-Building?

The following is a guest post from Kacper Wrzesniewski who wirtes a blog about personal development, finances and investing.

Personal finances and body-building are among few of my passions. I dedicate a lot of time to them and I definitely find this time is not a waste. Both cases are great investments that constantly bring a lot of positive results.

As I am always looking for various analogies, patterns and ideas that are similar in different aspects of our lives, I also decided to find what common for personal finances and body-building is.

• No instant effects -- Ok, there are some black hat techniques and hacks that may work, but they are high risk level. My advice: be patient. Don’t go for “get rich quick” or “get big quick” schemes. In most cases they are scams or they will waste your money and health. Once again – patience, patience, patience… and the effects will eventually come.

• Start with small steps -- Trying everything you have learned at once is next to impossible and usually this strategy ends with poor results. Start slowly. Set small goals. Don’t spend two hours everyday on gym. Your body will refuse and it will give results opposite to desired. Don’t try to incorporate all the financial techniques at once. This is way too much and there is high possibility you won’t handle everything in a proper way. Cool down. Take small steps.

• Track your progress -- Recently I have written on my blog about tracking expenses. It is one of the best things you can do for your finances. Track also your other financial goals. Track your progress at gym as well. It is essential to constantly add weigh in each of your exercises. Therefore, tracking it is a must. You will not forget how much you have lifted last time, and as a bonus it is a great motivational technique.

• Failure -- Failure is not a bad thing. You should expect failures and learn from them. At gym, when your muscles fail to lift, that means you have just taken a step beyond your comfort zone. Your body will adapt and you are about to progress. When you are investing on stock market, it is impossible to not to experience any failure. There are no investors that find only gainful picks. Remember to take conclusions and learn from your failures. As you can expect, tracking all your transactions, as well as other financial actions, might be really helpful there.

• Constantly increase your knowledge -- Both personal finances and body-building are dynamic disciplines. Things that worked few years ago can be no longer effective. Of course there are some timeless ideas and rules. But if you want to be good at what you are doing, then keep learning.

• Learn from better than you -- Find someone who is getting results that you want. Learn from that person, ask question, ask for advices and follow them, discuss with that person. Don’t be afraid. People love to talk about their passions and experiences and if person you ask is not a real dork, then you have big changes to get some help.

• Improve your health and diet -- Frugality and body-building teach you a lot about your diet and food. Most of frugal food habits and hacks; as well as diet advices that you can hear from your coach or nutritionist have great, positive impact on you health and wellbeing. Don’t miss these benefits.

• Satisfaction -- Finally, when you experience progress, it gives you a lot of satisfaction, joy and it motivates you to go farther.

Comments

[Aya @ Thrive]

Interesting relationship, body-building and personal finance, you would never think to put the two together even though you've made it clear that they work along the same principles. I'm all for setting goals and tracking spending, I've got a white-board and a notebook for daily expenses that helps me organize.
Over at Thrive where I work, that's what it's all about to - the best way to go about managing personal finance is to be concious of it and have it visible. It's funny that you refer to improving health because Thrive uses the term "financial health," because as you say its all about maintaining and watching out for health.
Spending money can be thought of as the snacking we do in between work-outs that we need to keep track of and which helps us think about our work-out routine.

[Caleb Nelson]

Great analogy. I'm so glad that you came back to give an update. I stumbled onto your blog a couple of weeks ago, and I've come back to check on your status every day since. I just started a new blog, and this one is quite inspiring to say the least. I cannot wait until I reach some of the levels that you have been able to get to.

How long have you been body-building?

Caleb Nelson

[FMF]

Caleb --

It's a guest post.

[Bad_Brad]

Good analogy. Both body-building and investing take discipline, dedication, tenacity, and a lot of mental toughness. And you have to be a long-term thinker. And you have to have a strategy and be willing to stick to it. You also have to monitor your progress periodically.

My Pastor has used this analogy of physical exercise to illustrate a faith journey. He argues that with faith, you have to "train" your heart and mind to focus on the cross. Training, by definition, is working to eventually be able to do something that you can't do today on effort alone. I think the analogy works just as well with investing in the markets too.

[Ed]

This is a great post. I knew I was not the only one out that that saw this relationship!

I am a powerlifter and have been for about that past ten years. The leasons you learn "under the bar" transfer over to so many other asspects of life. Discipline... responsiblity... goal setting... ahhhhhh... the list goes on an one.

[Bill R.]

What an interesting and surprisingly appropriate analogy. Thanks.

The two steps I commonly espouse when counseling customers include "No Instant Effects" and "Start with Small Steps." First, I like to establish that a budget and savings plan is a long-term process and there are no short cuts. However, I still feel that people seeking to improve their financial picture need to see some progress to keep them motivated, so achieving these small steps may be the equivalent to adding an addtional 10 lbs. to the bar for a bench press.