Maintaining Motivation Through the FIRE Journey
It is always easy to stay motivated as you just start something new, everything is fresh, interesting, your thirst for knowledge is seemingly unquenchable and every day is full of significant progress. The first few months of the FIRE journey can feel like this, you do all the basics like set up a budget, reduce your unnecessary expenses, build the emergency fund and start to invest.
Fast forward several years (or a couple decades) and you are near the end, the hard work is about to come to fruition, all your sacrifice you have put in over the years is about to pay dividends and you are finally able to reach that dream of FIRE.
What about the middle? It can get to a stage where you really do not have to do much more, everything is essentially set up and you are just waiting for that number in your net worth to reach the point where you can pull the trigger on FIRE. Each month, you continue to invest your leftover income, gradually growing closer and closer to your target. You are doing everything right, but the motivation might not be there, and it can become tedious or almost boring while you are waiting.
What Can We Do?
There is no hiding it, it can be difficult to maintain motivation through the FIRE journey, but I believe there are a few different ways to be able to hold onto as much as possible to at least avoid total capitulation. After all, if you are working hard for 2 years and not feeling like you have achieved much progress, motivation can be waning, and it might be difficult to stay the course until the end.
Below are some ideas which I believe can help anyone on the FIRE journey maintain that motivation.
- Set Smaller Goals Along the Way and Celebrate
Setting goals is one of the best ways to maintain motivation, if you are a goal driven person, setting a goal can be a fantastic way to break down the journey into small achievements, which do not need the long-term time frame that an overall FIRE journey might have. I wrote this post a while ago about the important of setting SMART Goals.
For example, it may be daunting to have the goal of building a portfolio value of $1,000,000 when you are currently sitting at $100,000. Why not break it down into $50,000 blocks and each time you reach a new milestone you go out and celebrate, you might only need to set a goal 6 months ahead and it should be a lot easier to maintain that motivation over the shorter time frame.
Celebrating at the end of each mini goal is important as well, it does not have to be extreme, maybe just going out for a nice dinner with your family, or a small holiday somewhere (when the borders open back up). Giving yourself that reward at the end of the goal, is a good way to help you stay motivated to reach the next one.
2. Actively Work on Speeding up the Journey
If you do have time on your hands, and you find yourself filling large portions of your day with unproductive time, then why not look at using this time to speed up your FIRE journey.
There is no magic trick to it, there is only really two sides to the equation:
Income – Expenses = Gap
Get this “Gap” as big as possible and invest it.
If you want to speed up your journey, increase your income and/or decrease your expenses.
I did this POST before about Side Hustle ideas, there is sure to be something on that list that you would be able to fit into your schedule if you were determined enough to speed up your FIRE journey.
Not only will this speed up your journey, but it might also provide some much-needed rejuvenation to bring that motivation back for the overall journey.
3. Start Planning and Implementing for Post-FIRE
This is something that I personally need to do more, as at the moment I do not have a great idea of what I will be filling my time with when I do reach FIRE. I have vague ideas of what I want to do, but nothing really thought out.
A sense of purpose is essential for maintaining our own self-worth, for a lot of this (for better or worse) that is our job. We validate ourselves by our work, and if our work is no longer there, then we might need to ask ourselves where it is going to come from.
If you have a young family or a partner, then spending time with them is an obvious choice, but children do grow up and we still need our individual identity.
Have a think about what your post-FIRE life will look like and see if you can start to implement it into your current life. Maybe volunteering is something you want to do, so you could look at volunteering a couple days a month somewhere. Or you might want to be travel across the country, so while you are still accumulating you might buy a campervan and go on some smaller trips just to get ready for it.
It is a big step going from working full time to all of a sudden being retired, if you are not able to ease into it by cutting down the days you work and you do go from full time to nothing, then it is important to brace yourself for the shock that will come.
One added benefit of this approach is that you mighty find out the thing you were hoping to do in your retirement, you do not actually enjoy as much as you thought you would. At least then you were able to find out earlier on so you can adjust your plan and start implementing a different approach.
4. Take a Break or Semi Retire
The last thing I want to talk about is maybe just look at taking a break from work for a few months, if you have built up enough of a portfolio that you can survive for a while without work, then why not. You get to give yourself a small taste of that post-FIRE life so you can remind yourself how awesome it will be when you are finally able to pull the trigger, and you also get some much-needed time to rejuvenate and get back some motivation to get back to work.
Coast FIRE is also an option, you can cut back your hours and work part time and just cover your expenses, allowing your investments to grow to the point needed to pull the trigger.
5. Become Involved in FIRE Community Discussions
There are several online communities on Reddit and Facebook for example where you can find a plethora of like minded people across the country or globe. I have found these communities are incredibly helpful and the more experienced members are always willing to help and offer advice for newer members. If you have found yourself in a position that is more “experienced” than some, then it is a great opportunity to help people learn the ropes of FIRE. One side bonus is that being involved in the discussion allows you to think back to where you were when you first got into FIRE, and realise how far you have actually come, and seeing this improvement can be a great motivation.
Also, there is always more you can learn and always someone who will know more about a certain topic than you might do. Being part of these communities can help you learn about things you did not know you didn’t know about, opportunities you never even contemplated before. Anything to keep those internal flames burning!
6. Read Finance / Self Help Books
My last piece of advice if you are ever feeling a lack of motivcation is to read a book, even if you believe you know a lot, there is just about always an opportunity to learn something from every book you do read. Even if the book is not telling you anything new, it would at least be reinforcing your own financial beliefs and help concrete that foundation you are building on.
Alternative, part of FIRE is also about whole life improvement, so reading a self help book to improve other aspects of your life away from FIRE is also a good opportunity to become a more rounded person.
Summary
What I have said above are not the only ways to stay motivated of course, because each and every person is different, so you really need to do what works for you. I have just outlined what I think will work for the vast majority of people.
The FIRE journey is quite long, and there are definitely times it can become boring, it can also become easy to forget about the end goal when it might seem so far away at times.
I hope the above tips can help people stay motivated through their FIRE journey, because once they reach the end, it will be worth it.