When I first started investing, I spent a lot of time overanalyzing small decisions. Every allocation tweak felt important, every market move needed an explanation. Over time, especially after living through a few volatile periods, I noticed that the biggest improvement didn’t come from better analysis, but from doing less.
Simplifying the process, checking prices less often, and accepting that uncertainty is part of the game made investing feel calmer and more sustainable. I’m curious what helped others reach that point. Was it experience, a bad mistake, automation, or simply time in the market?
What helped you stop overthinking your investments?
byu/Beneficial-Ad-9986 ininvesting
Posted by Beneficial-Ad-9986
7 Comments
Anytime a CEO is on CNBC, time to sell the top.
It was fatigue. Constantly checking your positions is stressful, it wears you down. Once I realized I was getting zero benefits (at best) from dedicating time and energy to non-essential things, the quality of my decisions (and quality of life) have improved.
“The Illusion of Validity” Chapter of the book “thinking fast and slow”
Knowing that even professionals can’t consistently beat the market leads me, an amateur, to just be 100% VTI and get on with the rest of my life
Lots of research into financial theory / academia / practice.
Landed on a portfolio allocation and the broad strokes theory to use some leverage on the broad market plus uncorrelated diversifiers. No stock picking. No active decisions. Follow the plan. Rebalance.
Work taking up more of my time and decision making energy, so I didn’t have leftover capacity to care as much about my portfolio.
Owning stocks is, for me, like owning farmland with partners and managers who tend the land for me.
I read the manager’s annual report once a year, and check the stock price at about the same time. That is usually the only time I open the brokerage account.
It helps to to do things that promote calmness and meaning. It also helps not to have all of your money invested in stocks.
Good luck with everything.