Investing and Exercising, What Do They Share In Common?

Another resolution I made for 2013 apart from starting my journey towards financial freedom is to lose weight. Losing weight and staying healthy has always been in the back of my mind throughout the entire 2012, yet I have always pushed it aside time and time again. As my waistline expand over the years, I started to feel tired and lethargic. In fact I'm short of breath even after climbing just two flights of stairs!!! Now you can imagine how unfit I am!!

It was only a couple of years ago when I was a total exercise freak for a period of few months. I was into swimming and ran about 5km daily. And true enough, I lost weight and was much fitter/desirable/good looking back then. Now the problem begin when my knees and feet started to ache. The pain was so unbearable that I had to consult a doctor. The doctor diagnosed me with loose knees and I was told me to wear knee guards every time I exercise. Then a bout of sickness came along , putting to grave every last bit of my enthusiasm towards exercising. And just like many of us, once you've put off something for a period of time, it's pretty difficult to start all over again. 

Back to the present day, I've decided to start exercising again but with some minor changes. I realized that in the past, I was overly "gungho" and was pushing myself every time I exercised. This time, I'm going to start slow, working out with light weights and doing aerobics just to sweat it out for half an hour. The results of losing weight would be slow, yet I believe it would happen eventually. 

In fact investing is rather similar to exercise. The old exercise routine which I have gone through is similar to someone who is investing into forex, futures, warrants and speculating in the share markets. The profit gains are fast and huge in amount yet on the other hand, so would the losses be. The hours spent on monitoring,analyzing. buying and selling would eventually take a toll on that person. Not to mention that you might even neglect your day job just to monitor how the market is performing,. Worrying that you might lose an opportunity to make a profit. In fact a major loss could wipe our your entire savings, hence killing all your desires to ever invest again. Sounds familiar to my old exercise routine huh?

It dawned to me over dinner today that my investment plan had similarities to my current exercise routine. Slow, consistent and  non distracting are the key elements for both my investment and losing weight objectives. I might not see the results immediately, but with a little patience, the gains would eventually be enjoyed over the longer horizon. 

Another point I would like to make on the similarities between exercising and investing is diversification. If I were to stick to the same exercise routine for the next 10 years, I am pretty sure that I'll get bored of it. Therefore occasionally changing the exercise routine helps to keep the motivation going and also to ensure that other parts of my body will get a good workout too. The same applies to investing, never put all your (eggs, moolah, money) into a single (basket, investment). Diversifying your money into unit trust, fixed deposit, gold, silver, shares, etc would ensure that if any one of your investment fails, you have other investments that could cover those losses. 

2013 is certainly a new beginning for me and I relish the very fact that I am setting goals which would ensure a comfortable retirement (investing long term) and having a healthy body (exercising) to enjoy the fruits of my investment!

Have you started yours?

Cheers and Happy INvesting