Beware when starting to invest, don’t jump into the stock trading world wholeheartedly without first considering your work-life balance. Some get the investing bug and find themselves constantly looking at their portfolio, making sure that they do not miss the trade, either on the way up or down. This has been found to interfere with their work-life balance. It is a behavior that has almost become akin to compulsive gambling, where the hormone spikes and presents like craving in the body.
What is Work-life Balance?
Often, you will find that work takes precedence over everything. This means that the desire to succeed professionally takes us off course from our personal lives, which means, most people have to gamble between their professions and life. Work-life balance simply refers to the prioritization given between the personal and professional activities of an individual. It also refers to the level at which professional activities related to your job are present in the home.
Ideally, the goal is to create harmony between professional work and personal life. Striking a balance between these two is critical, and it does not only improve our physical and emotional wellness, but it also contributes largely to the success of families.
Think of work-life balance as the equilibrium, where a person has to draw a line between their personal lives and professional duties.
When it comes to stock trading, there are two most important things you should know;
- 90% or even more of the day traders lose money at times.
- 95% of finance professionals, those paid to invest, cannot always beat the market.
So, what does this mean to your work-life balance?
If these two points are clear, the next natural step for you to take is considering your daily actions. Supposing that you are in the approximated 5% of the people who are lucky to beat the market, try to investigate how you did it, was it because you are good at picking the winning stocks or just out of pure luck!
To strike a positive work-life balance, you need to assess the amount of time you are spending just looking at the stocks, candlestick diagrams, and earnings reports to be in that 5%
Doing that, does it justify your time? Also, if you are in the 95% who are unable to beat the market, are you spending that same amount of time trying to find the right stocks? You need to reassess your time vs. outcomes while also continuing to educate yourself and staying aware of balancing both.
More often than not, most traders aspire to have a positive work-life balance. Traders (more than 95%) should spend their trading time either working more to earn and save for investing, or enjoying that time. As such, knowing that 95% cannot beat the market to be in the top 5%, all you have to do is follow the market. You can do this by following a broad range of approximately 15-30 stocks (more than 15 lowers your volatility, also called Beta) from different industries that closely match the S&P. but the goal is to have more life in our work-life balance; it is better still to buy an EFT (Exchange Traded Fund) ETF that does this for you. They will also track the entire S&P or similar indexes. The fees on TFs are super low ( for example, Vanguard’s average ETF expense ratio: 0.06%), and this is well worth it which leaves you with so much time to enjoy your personal life. Remember, making an assessment of your lifestyle will determine if investing in stocks is right for you.
