Some people find any dealings with their finances as tiring as flossing their teeth. It’s not exactly what they look forward to doing on a Friday night after the kids have fallen asleep.
Other people enjoy looking up stock symbols and researching companies, and they prefer to check their portfolio than watching the latest series on Netflix.
What’s the difference between these two kinds of people?
How do you become one of those who finds stock investing thrilling?
Here are five simple hacks to make stock investing more fun.
1. Trust That it Will Eventually Make You Rich
Many new investors feel that stocks are risky business, and they fear losing all their money. This creates resistance on a subconscious level, and it’ll make it difficult to enjoy researching companies.
When you’ve invested successfully for a while you begin to trust that investing will make you wealthy in the long run.
In order to find joy in investing, you’ve got to hack into that trust prematurely.
You have to convince yourself that investing works.
You do that by reading about successful investors and by meeting people who have succeeded.
You also get more confidence by accumulating more knowledge about investing.
2. Set Ambitious Goals
You need specific goals so you know where you are heading. But more than specific goals, you also need ambitious goals.
Small, mediocre goals leave you feeling deflated. Big goals lift you up and make you work on a higher energy level.
Big goals can really change your life.
When you set your big goal, you might want to think long term. How is your life going to look in ten years? Ten years is enough time to become financially free for most people. What will your goal be in ten years? How much do you need to become financially free? Have you calculated that number? If you need help, you can book a strategy call with me right here to set up your goals.
What about including your family in your goal? Working for a goal that is bigger than you will make more sense on a deeper level. What is your goal for your children? How about creating generational wealth? And if you have no children: what cause would you like to support? What will you contribute to?
3. Invest in Something That You Like
Invest in something that you understand – that is rule number one when finding investments. But you should also invest in something that you like.
Many people invest in something that they don’t know anything about, and some people even invest in something that they can’t fully support.
Investing outside your level of competence and outside your values will make investing feel like a chore, because you are working against yourself.
4. Reward Yourself
When you have smaller successes with your investing, you should reward yourself.
I know of a woman who always buys designer bags with the dividend that she gets from her investments. It motivates her.
Now, I’m not sure how many bags a woman really needs, and I prefer to reinvest any dividends or gains to let the effect of compounding do its wonder. But I do applaud the idea that you should avoid spending money on luxury directly from your salary. Make your money work for you for a while in the investing machine before you spoil yourself.
You don’t necessarily have to reward yourself with material things like designer bags. You can reward yourself with experiences like dining out at a nice restaurant. Your reward doesn’t even have to cost anything. It can be a trip to the summerhouse or day off work and chores.
How and when is up to you. The point is to celebrate when you have achieved some kind of success – and the definition of success is up to you too.
How to celebrate your success might be another blog post for another day. If you have a nice habit of celebrating your success then tell me about it either through mail or on social media, and you can inspire me for the next blog post.
5. Build a Peer Group Around Your Investing Practice
If you can talk with like-minded people about your investment ideas, it’ll become more fun for you to find them.
If, on the other hand, you don’t know anyone who understands what you are trying to do, it’s going to feel a little lonely.
Fortunately, it’s very easy today to meet other people with the same interests through social media.
There are, for example, plenty of investing groups on Facebook. Try to find one that matches your style of investment and your temperament.
You are welcome to join my group Managing Money and Freedom here.
Do you want to learn how to invest like the famous investor Warren Buffett? I teach you how to do that in my e-book Free Yourself. You can download it here.
