Honestly, I don’t know if I have satisfactory advice for how to motivate yourself to do hard things. The truth is that the desire must come from within, and it must burn so hot and so bright that nothing can prevent it from shining through.
Long ago, there was a tree chopping competition. Two lumberjacks decided to race, seeing who could chop down a tree first. They go deep into the forest and find two equally big trunks, agreeing to start at sunup and go to sundown.
The first day, the morning comes, and both get started, chopping hard. By the late afternoon, one of them sits down, back turned, and rests. He gets up as the sun is setting and calls it a night. The other man is feeling good. After all, he got way more time in since he didn’t need to rest like his fellow competitor.
The next day, the same thing happens. Both men chop the morning away, but by the evening the first man takes his rest and finishes early. The second man is starting to feel confident, sure he will win.
An old man was walking along a beach after a terrible storm and found the shore covered in thousands of stranded starfish. As he walked, he noticed a young child in the distance who was frantically picking up the starfish and throwing them back into the ocean. The man approached the child and said, "There are miles of beach and thousands of starfish. You can't possibly save them all. What you are doing won't make a difference!" The child listened politely, bent down, and picked up another starfish. Tossing it safely past the breaking waves, the child looked up at the man and replied: "It made a difference to that one."
Listen, y’all, I’m no financial advisor. But I implore you to consider opening a Roth IRA if you have not already.
Before we answer the question “How?”, let’s answer the question “Why?”.
Take a look at the simple example below.
If you set up your account to contribute even just $50 per month, over the next 20 years you will contribute $12,000 of your own money. However, due to compound interest (assuming a reasonable return of 8%), your money will have more than doubled, growing to over $29,000. That’s $17k of free money you just made simply by starting today and giving it 20 years to grow.