Why You Should Quit Reading Personal Finance Blogs
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If you want to get someplace better and richer, the first thing you should do is to quit reading. Blogs. “ How I Did It” stories. “The 3 Simple Steps to Whatever”. “You Too Can Get Rich”. All of that stuff.
The biggest mistake I made early on in my journey to financial betterment was to think that knowledge was equal to action. I didn’t do it consciously. At the back of my mind, I knew that I needed to take all this stuff and do something with it. But it was always more fun to read the next story. And float away into the “happily-ever-after” ending all over again.
Or worse, I’d read the “Complete Guide to” literature and feel really good that I finally knew enough about credit cards or how to buy car insurance, or whatever. This high from gaining new knowledge satiated me so much that I’d continue living with my terrible car insurance or credit card, too complacent to actually do anything.
But I’ve learned better now:
Only action matters.
But how do you take that impossibly hard step of moving forward? Especially when you are weighed down by fear, anxiety and the big, looming possibility (certainty?) of failure?
Turns out that willpower, life-changing epiphanies and inspirational guides and stories are not what’s going to flip the switch. Rather, it’s the smallest of small things that hold the secret to your amazing transformation of any kind.
The Keys to Taking Action
Let’s take a peek into the science and art of making changes to behavior — the same knowledge that behemoths like Facebook and Google spend millions of dollars to get right. But instead of getting more hooked to our smartphones, we can just as easily direct this powerful insight to nudge us towards taking the first small step.
BJ Fogg is a popular professor at Stanford University. His class boasts of startup legends as alums, including the founder of Instagram. Outside of his classes, he’s been…
