You may not be much of a New Year’s resolution person. The turn of the year doesn’t mean much to you other than more college football games.
Others set their 2022 goals in stone before the stockings had been dug through Christmas morn.
Not all of us do resolutions or set goals. We all have systems in our lives though, but let’s not call them that. It’s too mechanical.
Call ‘em routines.
They might be intentional or unintentional, but one thing is for sure—you have them. And though a routine sounds less official (at least in my mind) than a habit or a system, we become what we routinely do.
Setting goals are great. Developing routines to reach them are even better. The first is abstract; the second is implementable.
You might check Facebook or hit the gym first thing in the morning. Nighttime may be for Netflix or paring a glass of wine with a book to wind down. Routines fill up our lives.
What if you made a new one and implemented it now? And what if I told you that it was not like exercise? It only required one intentional act from you and would continue to happen on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis without you having to do another thing.
Here it is: if you can, set up an automatic and periodic transfer of 1% more of your paycheck into a savings or investment account in 2022.
Just 1% more.
Sound small? It’s not. Tiny gains compounded over time can do a lot.
Habit apologist, James Clear, states, “In the beginning, there is basically no difference between making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent worse. (In other words, it won’t impact you very much today.) But as time goes on, these small improvements or declines compound and you suddenly find a very big gap between people who make slightly better decisions on a daily basis and those who don’t. This is why small choices don’t make much of a difference at the time, but add up over the long-term.”[1]
Don’t just make a new financial goal for 2022, set up a new routine.
Why not now?
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