New Year, Same You

Did you do it? What is on the list?

Surely, over the past few days, you’ve taken the time to jot down some new year’s resolutions for 2019. Exercise more. Eat better. Spend less time on the phone. Delete social media. Read more books. I’m guessing at least one of those made the cut.  

The start of the new year is where we make the time to reflect on the year gone by and set our focus for what we want in the year ahead.

New Year, New You. Psychologically, that is such a euphoric feeling knowing that we all have this great opportunity ahead of us. We are choosing to set goals for things that push us to become better; things that are ultimately in your control.

With investing, there are certain things out of your control. The performance of the market to end 2018 was one of those things. (Spoiler alert: the performance of the market is always outside of your control.)

But there are things that you can choose and that you can control when it comes to investing. You can control your asset allocation and your risk. You can control how much you are saving and how much you are spending. You can control your expectations and your knowledge of investing and how markets work. Most importantly, you can control how you react to events that cause emotional turmoil.

Hopefully you have a true financial plan in place and the recent market volatility has not duped you into making short-sighted or irrational decisions. If that’s the case, then New Year, Same You.