"Too Late
I am too late to begin.
I have heard this many times. And as with many things, it is a statement with some element of truth sprinkled on top, to hide a lie. I prefer a different take.
You're Not Late. You're Starting on Today's Time.
My own finances worked out. But for a long time, they worked out largely by chance, not because I planned them. I fell very sick once, and it was insurance I happened to have, not insurance I'd planned to get, that carried me through. I know I was blessed.
When people sit across from me, ready to begin, the thing holding them back is almost never money. It's a feeling. The feeling that they should have started years ago. That everyone else has a head start. That the gap is now too wide to bother closing.
It is far easier for life to drift along on luck instead of a plan. Even more painful is admitting that fact.
So if that feeling is what's stopping you, hopefully this comforts you.
There is NO race
We picture personal finance as a race. Somewhere when we started work after graduating, there was an unseen starting gun that went off; and everyone else sprinted away. For whatever reason, we're only now jogging up to the line, late, lost, and last.
It's a powerful image. It feels real. You feel like you are living it. Let me assure you, it's also completely made up.
There is no race
There is no starting gun. There is no line up. No race. No defined targets. Nobody is running your race. The person you imagine sprinting ahead of you is, well, not there. They are running their own life; possibly drifting, possibly targeted. It is possible he or she is running right on the track, following a clear path to their finishing line. It is also equally possible he or she is drifting and going where the wind blows, hoping their idea of a plan holds. Some of them will be fine. Some of them are one event away from discovering that hope was never a strategy. And some of them are deliberately on the right, accelerated path paved with gold.
You are not behind in a race. Because there is no race. You are simply starting to be deliberate.
"Too late"
When someone tells me it's too late, I ask, too late for what, exactly?
Too late to have started at twenty-five? Yes. You are no longer 25 and that door is closed, behind you.
But the path that matters is the one in front of you today. And here is the thing about compounding, about protection, about every good financial habit: they all start counting from the day you begin, not from the day you wish you'd begun. And your trajectory? It can change when you deliberately decide to change.
Your money doesn't know, or care about, your age. It doesn't know how long you procrastinated. It only does what it does. And the day you decide to tell it where to go, that deliberate, intentional decision. That is your start day.
Let it be today if you have not started. Let today be your starting line; and it is YOUR starting line. Not someone else's. And if you have started, congratulations. Focus on running your own race.
Starting on Purpose, Not by Chance
I got lucky early, before I was ever intentional. But now I am deliberate about staying on the path. And the difference between lucky me and intentional me? It isn't income, that is for sure. It isn't a pot of gold that appeared.
It is simply that. Intention. When I am intentional, I decide. I act. And I move deliberately towards the future I want.
You don't need to have been early. You don't need a large sum, a finance degree, or a clean past of good decisions. You need to stop behaving as though the future will sort itself out, and start treating it as something you get to shape.
The difference between moving toward your goal and drifting toward it is whether you chose the direction, or just ended up pointing that way.
If you want the practical first steps, I've written those separately: where the money goes when you begin, over at Can You Embark on Financial Planning Without Any Money?, and the order I'd put it in, over at How I track my expenses. But the mechanics were never the hard part. The hard part is believing you're allowed to start now.
You are. You're not late.
You're just starting on today's time.
Start small. Start today. But start on purpose.
I write on topics related to financial habits and decisions. Do explore my other articles at https://www.williamseah.com/blog if the ideas resonate. Drop me an email at reach.william@gmail.com or text me at 9673 1523 if you'd like to chat over coffee or whisky.
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