Are you tired of investing? The first thing I decided. Why I believe “investing needs an end”
Are you tired of investing?
You worry about the daily stock prices.
You worry about other people’s asset amounts.
When stock prices go up, you think, “I should have bought more,” and when they go down, you feel anxious, wondering, “Will it be okay like this?”
While repeating things like that,
“How long on earth should I keep investing?”
Have you ever thought that?
I believe that investing needs an “end.”
This is because I think people can do their best precisely because there is an end.
1️⃣ If you make “increasing money” your goal, investing will have no end
“I want to increase my money through investing.”
Of course, this is not a bad thing.
Rather, I think it is a very natural reason to start investing.
However,
if you make “increasing money” itself your goal, there will be no finish line.
Once you reach 10 million yen,
“Next is 30 million yen”
Once you reach 30 million yen,
“Next is 50 million yen”
Once you reach 50 million yen,
“Since I’ve come this far, let’s aim for 100 million yen.”
And once it reaches 100 million yen…
“Let’s increase it a bit more before I spend it.”
That might be what happens.
Money does not have a natural goal where you can say, “Once it reaches this amount, I’m done.”
Therefore, unless you set a goal for yourself, the desire to “increase it more” will continue forever.
If you look at social media, there are countless people with more assets than you.
There is always someone better.
If you keep chasing that, it will never end.
That is why I
believe it is important to make “what I want to achieve by using money” the goal, rather than “increasing money.”
think so.
2️⃣ From the moment I started investing, I decided on “100 million yen in 10 years”
I started investing in June 2018.
My savings at the time were 1.8 million yen.
And from the moment I started investing,
“achieve 100 million yen in 10 years and FIRE”
I had set that as my goal.
For me, 100 million yen is not a “waypoint to increase money further.”
It was the target amount to FIRE and use my time more freely.
That is why,
“How can I reach 100 million yen?”
I was able to think about.
There is a 10-year deadline.
There is a target amount of 100 million yen.
And beyond that, there is the goal of FIRE.
Once this much is decided, investing is no longer just “something to increase,” but
“a means to reach the goal 10 years from now.”
becomes.
I think this was significant for me.
3️⃣ Once the goal is set, it becomes easier to think about “what to do now”
Once I decided to “aim for 100 million yen,” the next thing to think about is,
“How do I get to 100 million yen?”
is.
How much return is needed?
How much risk should I take?
How should I protect my assets as they grow?
By working backward from the goal like that, you can create your own investment rules.
In my case, in the early stages of asset formation, I also utilized leveraged ETFs and took on a certain amount of risk.
On the other hand, now that my assets have grown, I am more conscious of “protecting” them than before.
This is not
because I want to maximize my returns at all costs.
It is because
I have a goal of “achieving 100 million yen in 10 years and reaching FIRE.”
If the goal is different, the risk you should take also changes.
4️⃣ Because there is an “end,” I can face market crashes
If you are investing, market crashes are unavoidable.
If your assets decrease significantly, you will feel anxious.
I don’t like it when my assets decrease either (laughs).
Even so, by setting a goal from the moment I started investing,
I have become able to look not only at
“what the current stock price is”
but also at “what I want to do in 10 years.”
A market crash is one of the unavoidable paths in continuing to invest.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you should just endure and hold onto everything.
You do need to consider whether your current investment strategy is appropriate for your goal.
But at the very least,
I no longer need to think simplistically,
“The stock price has fallen, so I’ll quit investing.”
If you are on your way to a goal, the scenery along the way may change.
I invest with that kind of feeling.
5️⃣ Try changing your goal from “increasing money” to “what you want to do”
If you are currently,
“a little tired of continuing to invest”
“feeling anxious when looking at other people’s asset amounts”
“not sure how much you should increase it to”
there is something I would like you to consider for a moment.
Not “how much money do you want to increase it to?” but “what do you want to do with the money?”
is it.
For example,
“I want to save 30 million yen in 10 years and change how I work”
“I want to save 50 million yen in 15 years and do the work I love”
“I want to save 100 million yen and FIRE”
and so on.
Not just the amount,
decide “what you want to achieve with that money”
as well.
If you do that, the meaning of investing might change.
Instead of just continuing to increase your assets,
“I will work this hard for the sake of my own life.”
That is because it becomes a goal.
📖 By the way, there is also a book like this
Having read this far,
“Increasing money isn’t the only purpose of investing, is it?”
“I want to think about how to use the money I’ve increased after that.”
For those who thought this, I think the book “DIE WITH ZERO: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life” is also interesting.
When I started investing in 2018, I had set a goal of “achieving 100 million yen in 10 years and reaching FIRE.”
Since this book was published in Japan in 2020, it did not yet exist when I started investing.
I learned about this book later, but the idea of thinking not just about saving and increasing money, but also about how to use the time and life that lies beyond that, overlapped with what I myself had been thinking about since I started investing.
If you are interested in the theme of this article, I think it is a book you will find interesting to read.
📋Conclusion
People can work hard because there is an end.
That is what I think.
Even in a marathon, you can keep running because there is a finish line.
Even at work, you can work hard because there is a deadline.
Isn’t investing the same?
With only the goal of “increasing money,” there is no end.
That is precisely why,
“By when, how much to create, and what to do with that money”
Try deciding on one.
In my case, it was
“to reach 100 million yen in 10 years and achieve FIRE”
that was it.
I set this goal in 2018 when I started investing with 1.8 million yen in savings.
Currently, my assets have exceeded 70 million yen, but I have not yet reached my goal.
Therefore, I will continue to invest.
However, for me, investing is not a “game of increasing money forever.”
It is a means to make 100 million yen in 10 years and free up the rest of my life.
If you are tired of investing right now,
try stepping away from the thought that “I have to increase it more” for a moment,
and think, “What do I want to do with my money?”
and consider that.
Once a concrete goal is set, investing might become a little easier to continue than it is now.
For those who want to know more about “concrete investment methods”
I started investing with 1.8 million yen in savings and am currently managing over 70 million yen in assets.
Among that, what I have valued is
“how much risk to take to achieve the goal”
this way of thinking.
I have summarized my concrete approach to risk control and the investment methods I have practiced myself in this article.
“Is index investing really the only way? My ‘risk control’ investment strategy that grew 1.8 million to 70 million”
“I want to aim for higher returns. But I want to avoid major failures.”
I would be happy if those people could read this.
💬 Thank you for reading until the end! (#50)