Why Procrastinate When You Can Do It Tomorrow

Part 3 of 10

When I was growing up, I had a brother who was late for everything. He was late getting up, late getting to the bus stop, and late going to bed. If mom was going to yell for someone to hurry up or you’ll miss the bus, she would be yelling at my second oldest brother. I can still hear it today. Mom would yell, “Hurry up or you’re going to miss the bus.” And inevitably, my brother would always respond “Wait a minute.”

Procrastination, as it relates to investing, is most often driven by fear. When a person is fearful of losing money, he or she will hesitate to make a rational decision. Fear can cause a person to hesitate to make a good investment and it can also cause a person to hesitate in exiting a losing investment. Even though the facts are clearly evident, fear can cause a person to procrastinate in making a decision because that person does not believe the facts or trust his or her own abilities of analysis.

When you hesitate in the investing world, you often lose more often than you gain. Whether it is entering into a purchase or exiting a losing position, hesitation (procrastination) will cost you. However, an investor can also become frozen by too much analysis. You have to do your homework, but that homework should lead you to a decision point. If it doesn’t then you are doing the wrong homework.

It is difficult for a diligent investor to pull the trigger on a trade when the market experiences a pull back. Recently, on December 23^rd, 2018 the broader market suffered a significant drop. I had been watching a list of stocks in which I had an interest in opening a position. On that day, I received email alerts that five of the thirteen stocks I had on my watch list had hit my target price. The target price is the price I decided would be a reasonable entry point into these stocks, yet I hesitated to make the buy.

The reason why I procrastinated to make the buy was because the market was pulling back hard. Intellectually, I knew the pullback was a great buying opportunity, but psychologically, I could not rationalize making a buy when I had no confidence that the market would not continue to pull back on December 26^th. Unfortunately for me, when I watched the market rise over 1,000 points on the 26^th, I watched some of the stocks on which I had received the alerts, rise over $2.00 a share.

Procrastination kept me from buying when I knew an opportunity existed. However, I usually do not beat myself up too much because, I know the chance of the market continuing the pullback in the coming days is always possible. Patience can save you from making ill-advised decisions, whereas procrastination will cause you to make rash decisions after you feel as though you missed an opportunity.

These two realities, procrastination and patience are akin to the flesh and the spirit as written about by an old biblical prophet.  Using the dichotomy between procrastination and patience I paraphrase “For procrastination lusts against patience, and patience against procrastination; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.” [loosely translated from Galatians 5:17 New King James Version (NKJV)]

It can be said that procrastination and patience have the same root to different degrees. That root is fear. Procrastination is about preservation and patience is about opportunity. Procrastination is about the fear of losing current assets and patience is about the fear of missing the right opportunity to increase current assets. 

So, what can you do to overcome the roadblock of procrastination? The single most important way to overcome procrastination is to have a comprehensive financial strategy; not a plan, but a strategy. There is an important difference between having a plan and having a strategy. Let’s first look at what are the effects of having a plan and then what it means to have a strategy.

A plan is circumstantial, in that your actions are relating to or dependent on the circumstances or state of affairs in which you find yourself. Where circumstances influence actions, emotions tend to drive decisions. Emotionality is the second roadblock that must be overcome in order to be a successful investor. Since procrastination is often associated with the four types of fear discussed in Part 2 of 10 of this series, procrastination can be transformed into patience by overcoming emotionality.

A strategy is objective, meaning that your actions are not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts. In Part 2 of 10, Overcoming Emotionality, I said “Emotions are real, and you have to acknowledge them, but emotions are also really bad decision makers. Decisions that follow emotional inputs often lead to losses.” Facts, and the analysis of such, are what matters in strategic goals. That does not mean that you will not experience emotions, but your decisions will be made based on hard data.

Hard data includes, but is not limited to, earnings reports, forward guidance, earnings per share, revenue growth, and a number of other technical measurement. Devoid of emotions, hard data allows an investor to objectively decide to buy and sell stocks regardless of the market emotions. Jim Cramer opens his show Mad Money by saying, “There is always a bull market somewhere, my job is to help you find it.”

He then spends the next hour pouring over hard data. If you are the kind of person who wants to understand the markets instead of having someone else tell you what is best for you, then it behooves you to do the work of learning how to invest. And if you have put off learning what you need to know in order to take control of your money, then you have not overcome the roadblock of procrastination.

If you want to stop procrastinating and begin to take control of your financial future, then I would recommend you consider The Financial Black Belt’s Financial Self-Defense Training. This training offers a proven method to build wealth by associating financial literacy with the training and belt testing method of Hap Ki Do. This process gives you a life-long financial strategy because it takes a life time to master the process of becoming a successful investor.

I started training in the Korean martial art of HapKiDo in January of 2016. It has been three years since I began training. I have not yet achieved the rank of Black Belt, but I made a commitment to rediscover discipline and I continue to work towards the goal of becoming a 1^st Degree Black Belt.

The Financial Black Belt’s Financial Self-Defense Training requires the same level of commitment, and maybe more so, to achieve the rank of 1^st Degree Financial Black Belt. I developed this program over the course of two decades of personal financial management and investing. I have taught myself how to trade option contracts, capitalize on merger and acquisition arbitrage, and use technical markers such as the Fibonacci ratios.

The martial artist never stops learning even after he or she has attained the rank of 1^st Degree Black Belt. The successful investor never stops learning even after he or she has achieved the rank of 1^st Degree Financial Black. Just as the martial artist can achieve the rank of 9^th Degree Black Belt, the financial martial artist can achieve the same rank in a financial sense. The thing that stops most people from training is procrastination. So, what is stopping you?