Doing Well Doesn’t Mean It’s Clear What to Do Next
You can be making progress and still feel unsure what it all adds up to
Watching your investments grow feels good. It feels like you’re making progress. But it doesn’t always make the decisions any clearer.
Even when things are going well—excelling at work, saving more than you used to, life feeling busy but balanced—you still feel unsure about the decisions you’re making.
I get it. The only person who wouldn’t be surprised by how often I’m looking at my finances is my wife.
You might be feeling this too. It’s hard to know if we’re making the right choices in life.
The questions probably sound familiar:
Should I spend more now, or save it?
Am I saving enough, or too much?
Should I change jobs even though things are working?
Am I any closer to what I want, or just further along the same path?
What path am I even on, and am I happy with where I’m heading?
The questions pop up often, but the answers? Rarely. Or at least not without some intention.
Right now you, and many others working towards their financial independence (FI), probably reduce everything down to reaching a savings goal for retirement, your FI number.
Decisions get reduced to: does this help me reach it or not?
No, you’re not doing something wrong. There’s value in that. But it’s too narrow to guide your decisions.
Just saving more or picking up a few tactics doesn’t really solve it either.
It helps to look at it a little differently. An expanded view that doesn’t just work around the number.
Instead, shift the focus to your decisions and what they’re built on.
Future posts will go deeper into this, but the core idea is this: the FI number alone won’t give you what you need. There’s a bigger equation at play. One that’s shaped by your decisions and how they connect to each other.
When those connections aren’t clear, it’s easy to keep making progress without ever feeling more certain about where it’s leading.
I’ve spent a lot of time doing what I thought I was supposed to do—saving more, planning ahead, trying to get it right. But it didn’t always make the decisions feel any clearer.
From the outside, it looked like things were working, and in a way they were. My savings were growing and I could see a general timeline forming. But internally I was still unsure what I actually wanted and if any of it really lined up.
The progress was there. The clarity wasn’t.
Doing well doesn’t always tell you what to do next.
— Brad
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This is meant to help you think through financial decisions and tradeoffs—not tell you exactly what to do. It’s general in nature and not personalized advice.