Success Hurts

No pain, no gain.

I’ve joked several times with my trainer about the warnings on the workout equipment.

On every weight set, treadmill, elliptical, etc. there’s a warning about how the piece can hurt you. Ha! I thought they were supposed to help.

Anyway, the joke is always around this particular warning that is a common one on the machines:

“Stop exercising if you feel pain, faint, dizzy, or short of breath.”

My joke with him is that 1) I feel those things on just about every workout and 2) if I stopped when I felt them, I’d never exercise for more than 45 seconds. 🙂

Healthy Pain

Let’s face it, exercising hurts.

There’s pain (sore muscles, lifting heavy objects, etc.), shortness of breath (which is painful in its own way, but isn’t that what cardio training is designed to do?), and even the occasional minor injury. It’s that pain that helps us get better, stronger, and faster. Without it, there’s no progress.

And ultimately, the pain is much better than the alternative of sitting around.

I’ve compared physical and financial fitness. previously and noted several times how they are often linked together. The pain associated with both is another case of it. In both money and health, if you want to be successful, there’s going to be some pain involved.

Painful ESI

Long-time readers know the ESI story and what E-S-I stands for. Today we’ll talk about how there’s pain in each of the three steps to wealth:

• Earning — It can be painful to grow your career. After all, you already work 40 hours a week (at least!). Who wants to put in extra effort into their jobs? Most people just want to go home after a long day. And yet if you can handle just a little more effort, a bit more pain, you can make several million dollars extra over the course of your career. And it’s likely you’ll enjoy your work more as well. That’s a pretty good deal, right?
• Saving — Now we turn up the pain! Here you actually must have some self-control — probably the least admired trait in American society! Yes, you’ll need to do things like develop a cash flow plan, buy a house you can actually afford, control small spending, and maybe even move to a lower cost-of-living city. But if you can do these things, if you can manage the pain of self-control, you can create a good gap between earning and spending that will put you well down the road to financial independence. And you don’t have to be a miser to be successful here (no having to make your own toothpaste), just be moderately and selectively frugal.
• Investing — This is where it really gets painful — you have to put your hard-earned, well-saved money at RISK! Yikes! If you don’t think this can be painful, ask people who had their money in the stock market in 2008 and 2009. But if you can bear with the pain, investing can skyrocket your wealth. I’d suggest index funds for growth early in your career and then transition to income-generating investments like real estate, dividend investing, or P2P lending as you approach financial freedom. Your best investing weapon is time so work to invest early and often — then let that money grow and grow. If you do this, and ignore the ups and downs of the market along the way, it will make investing as pain-free as possible.

If you want more details on how to make the most of these three steps, see my list of five must-read personal finance books. Read them and do what they say and you’ll do well financially.

So while all of the three steps involve some level of pain, I can attest that, just like with exercising, the pain is worth it. You will come out on the other side in much better shape and be so, so thankful that you stuck with it through the pain.