Oh, I firstly want to say to this person... thank you! Thank you for being so brave and sharing your story, we need to normalise talking about money (the good and the bad!) so we can everyone can collectively learn from each other – I mean isn’t that how we’ve survived for a millennia?

We know which berries to not eat, where and when to fish the rivers and how to survival at a primal level because of human knowledge transfer... so why are we so damn bad at doing it with money? Because we’ve been told for too long that it is 'improper' to do so. And that my friends, has kept us lonely, feeling isolated and often winging it (never how I recommend making big money decisions, general advice speaking of course 😉).

So how do you make sure you never have feelings of sellers remorse? Not just with a property, but maybe its selling shares because you are spooked by what economists are predicting for the future. Or maybe its changing your Super to cash because you’re panicked about ‘losing’ money if the economic winds change.

*I highly recommend reading this now, even if you aren’t currently thinking about selling an asset. Don’t get to panic station before you think about this stuff, it’s never the ideal mindset to be making sound decisions from.*

Get back to basics

Let’s cut through everything... Why did you invest in the first place? Let’s get down to the bedrock of your strategy. What was the investment for in the beginning? What was the time horizon on the goal? Did you consider the investment fundamentals in doing so (correct risk profile, diversification, asset allocation..etc).

Step back and remember why it was you got it in the first place.

Why are we selling?

What is driving the decision? There may be a perfectly good/logical reason to sell an asset. Or there may be a ginormous emergency that has forced your hand (which is why we want to have emergency savings buffers and Income Protection...etc to avoid this).

Create a two sentence pitch to me as to why you think selling the asset makes the most sense based on the above fundamentals relating to the goal.

We want to sell assets because we want to, not because we have to.

Letting emotions drive decisions

Or is it that this decision has been driven by fear? It’s a sneaky and effective survival instinct to have us running for the hills.

Cutting and running can feel like the ultimate smart play. But in doing so, we crystallise our loss (remembering up until that point any loss is likely to be a ‘paper loss’ only), and often wipe years, if not decades of hard work and diligent investment growth off the table

Market cycles are normal parts of investing... couple that with 'humaning' with money and very quickly you can have spooked new investors who sell and tell themselves they aren’t ‘good’ at this whole investing thang and never return.

Don’t get swept up in the fear, media cycles. Turn off the news, unsubscribe from things or take the investing app off your phone if you’re panic checking it every day, which is sending you spiraling further into despair.

If you must, use your fear to fire you up into leaning in and learning more about behavioural finance.

Look for lessons

I want to remind you that every single person has made a mistake with money (if you think you haven’t, you have and are just waiting to realise it)... this is comforting and can be painful.

The worst thing you can do is let it knock your confidence. Or worse, mean you run far away from money decisions in the future.

Instead, look for the lessons here. What did you learn from that experience? If you had your time again, what would you differently and why? How can you put stopgaps in place to make sure you don’t do the same thing again?

Asking yourself these (often painful) questions enables us to become better investors in the future.

Let the guilt guide you

Guilt is a powerful emotion... but can it offer help? Yes. It can. Use it to help you commit to making different decisions moving forward.

Beating yourself up all day long is unlikely to be very helpful over the long term. But it may help you make focused and strategic decisions. It may help light a fire inside you to get back on track, or to figure out how you can pull yourself out of the situation to find yourself in.

What’s done is done and whilst it’s easy for me to say move on, I didn’t lose $90,000 here so I get there is a weight that comes with that... but at some point you need to forgive yourself, release the guilt and make considered action towards getting you back on track.

Get help!

Ideally, you should get help before you make that panicked decision. I have had so many people come to me after the fact... and by then, the damage is done.

Don’t do this stuff alone, get a professional in your corner...people think a qualified money expert is needed to help you build wealth not realising one of the other most important things we do is help protect it, from you in moments of wobble and panic.

So, get someone in your corner who you have to be accountable to. Make a plan to always have a conversation with a trusted person before you sell anything so you can walk through all the options and make sure it really is the right thing to do for you, your goal, your mental health and your financial future!

Jess

(Sincerely, thank you for letting me share your story 🙏).

Have a money dilemma?

Money dilemmas can be a nightmare! They can leave you up all night ruminating about what to do, have you feeling alone and isolated or just plain ol' stuck. So, we are here to help. I am going to tackle one a week and give you my unbiased, no BS general thoughts on how to tackle your conundrum. We would love for you to send yours (or someone you know) in. 

Obvs all of this is general advice only... especially important to note any and all of the comments above do not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information, you should consider the appropriateness of the information provided and the nature of the relevant financial product having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs.