Investing Thoughts : (Non Equities Related) My reflections on turning 28

As May approaches, i will be turning 28 this month. I did some reflection on various aspects of my life.

Lessons Learnt (Applicable to myself but does not mean it applies to all)

1) Its not about who is in front of you and who is behind you. But rather is the current speed and progress something you are satisfied with.

Many of times, we have heard of people sharing how highly paid / rich / well respected at work with high rank etc as well as stories of how people are lowly paid / poor/ suffering in some aspect of life / not having work life balance etc etc.

The main thing for me is that everyone has their own 'game' to focus on. As such, you should know yourself best in what you can achieve and what you cannot. Hence you should set targets for yourself only and focus on it. Whether people are overtaking you in some aspects of life or you have overtaken others in some aspect of life does not matter at all.

2) Ability / Knowledge / Skills does not equate results.

Perhaps a common understanding is that if you can do well then you will get good results.

Examples

A Singer sings very well = should be popular and do well

A person who does his job very well = should have good pay rise, bonus and promotion

A person who does his research for investing very well = Should be able to have better returns than those that does not

Unfortunately, such things are not given in real life and most of the time it does not happen. In some cases you can do the same thing 10 times and only find success 3-4 of times. Simply put, doing well improves your chance but does not mean anything else.

A lot of other factors will affect the outcome simply and its important to adjust your mindset towards that. The most important thing is that each time you do the same thing again, you are either putting in consistent effort or you are improving in doing it.

3) Have a realistic expectation of the stakes and tradeoffs involved in whatever you do

Sometimes, we can have unrealistic expectations of outcomes in various processes. As such when the outcome is not to our expectations, we find ourselves being unmotivated quickly.

Examples

Setting unrealistic expectations for investing. Expecting DBS to go to $100 by June 2022 for instance.

Thinking that more hours put in at work will get recognized. While this might be true in some cases, sometimes the people who get recognized might not be you as others might have put in even more hours or others might be the head of the project. The reasons are aplenty.

What is more important is that you should ask yourself if its worth it? If it is then go do it . But if it is not then you should ask what are the alternatives that i can seek and work towards it.

Above are just some of my thoughts. Does not to apply to all.

For myself i have some expectations and what i want to do this year. But since it applies to myself only and it probably sounds boring, i will not be talking about it here.

But keen readers would know where my interest lies..........