Maintaining Motivation : New Years and Beyond

Credit: Lazy Photo Dad

The start of a fresh new year fills everyone with energy. We make plans, set ambitious goals, and say we'll do better than last year. We'll go to the gym, we'll save more money, we'll spend more time with friends and family, and less time brainless on the couch watching reruns.

For the first couple of weeks, we stick to those goals. We're filled with fire, enthusiasm, and energy. The excitement of something new keeps us going. But as the weeks pass, and we return to work after the Christmas break, our fire burns out. It's easy to fall back into a rut, and our goals fall by the wayside.


With motivation flagging it's easy to put your goals aside, to tell yourself to that you dreamed too big. The good news is, motivation is only part of the puzzle. At first we do well at our goals because we're motivated. We're excited and we push ourselves to succeed every day. But we aren't full of endless energy and it's irrational to think we are.

In fact, we are lazy creatures of habit. Even the most exciting things can become dull if we do them day after day. As human beings, we get excited about variety, but when we run out of energy we fall back into routine. Rather than expecting this to lead to failure, it is in fact the direct path to success.

Get excited

In 2017 I was recovering from an ACL reconstruction. The injury itself happened in 2016, but it is such a large injury that I was not fully cleared until a full year later. After my last meeting with the surgeon I was excited to get fit again.

I picked up an exercise program online, as well as heading back to roller derby and I decided to get back into running. Two nights a week I went a running, every morning before work I busted out a 15 minute exercise routine (different each day) and when I got home from work I'd do another 10 minute garage workout. On top of that I was back at roller derby - I wasn't playing contact, but I was skating twice a week.

I was in the excitement phase of new goals. Every moment I had to spare I was stacking in new exercises, and I was feeling great. I even started changing up my diet.

Your financial health works just like your physical health. Many people would have started 2019 with goals to save more money. At the start of the year you're excited. You skip buying coffee, brown bag your lunch, and cut off a magazine subscription. Maybe you start Meatless Mondays and analyse the Dollars to Fun ratio of every activity you do.

Just like every who sets goals at the start of the year, I was keen to do my absolute best. I devoted time and energy, physical and mental, to making myself the fittest I could be. Even on a 40degree day I would work out in my garage upon arriving home. I quickly double the length of that get home strength routine.

Unsurprisingly, this wasn't maintainable.

Battling boredom and burn out

After just a couple of weeks, I dropped the running program. I was already riding to and from work each day, doing a strength routine at night, and balance / strength in the morning. To add to that, I was still doing Yoga as a recovery method for my knee - which was repaired, but fatigued easily.

A few weeks after that, I wasn't doing yoga anymore. After getting home from work, doing my get-home-routine, making dinner, and watching a TV show with Mr. FIRE, it would already be 8:30pm. To do yoga as well, we needed to start by 9:30 - which meant a measly hour each night to relax.

Burn out hits all of us because when we're excited we do too much. When something is new, it's easy to want to spend all our time on it. Unsurprisingly, when something is done for hours every day it can lose it's excitement value, but it also muscles out other things that are important.

When we start tracking our finances, and saving money it's exciting. Especially if you were an overspender and suddenly find yourself with all this money you didn't even realise you were wasting. But quickly we start to miss the things, and despite all the tricks in the book, saving and watching numbers becomes boring.

When struggling with your new years goals, it's important to understand that burnout is normal. Rather than giving up entirely, let burnout show you how much you need to scale back.

Success through systems

While the initial excitement of a goal will help you come up with ways to chase it, burnout will help you throw away the excess. However, we don't want to throw our goals out entirely.

After a few months, I was still riding to work daily. I kept up the morning workout - having gotten it down to just ten minutes - and I kept doing the get-home-routine. The part that kept these alive was habit. 

I had a system. I didn't stop to think about whether I would work out in the morning - the alarm went off, I got out of bed, and I did it. Generally yawning the whole way through. Every day when I got home from work, I dropped to the ground and started doing pushups in my garage - I didn't even step in the house.

The triggers for chasing our goals can't simply be motivation, but a system. 

If you are trying to save more, don't keep trying to motivate yourself to spend less. Instead, set a system when you immediately transfer money into a savings account on payday. Make sure it's an account where you can't immediately access the money. Even better, invest it directly into something like Raiz (previously known as Acorns) or RateSetter where you can't immediately get the money back for impulse buys.The system does the work for you, and you reap the benefits.

Want to spend more time with a partner, or friends? Don't say 'we'll catch up once a week' - tell yourself that every Friday is date night. The first Thursday of every month is Friends Night Out. Then make sure everyone else knows this to - build a system and stick to it. If no one can make it to Friends Night in January, make sure they know about it for February.

Habits are formed, and success is easy 

Once you have these habits and systems in place, you don't work at your goals anymore. They happen on their own. In January and February in 2017 I was working out constantly and thinking and planning about getting fitter all the time. Through March and April, I got bored, I put my systems in place, and I did things without even thinking. In September I glanced in the mirror and noticed I had the best muscle definition of my life. 

Success didn't happen when I was chasing it, but when I'd built a system that had me nurturing those goals every day.

In the same way, I opened a First Home Saver account in my teenage years. This was an Australian Government incentive where they would pay you a 17% bonus on any money invested, up to a certain amount. To get the full incentive you needed to deposit $5,000 a year, or $96.15 a week. I set up an automated transfer and forgot about it until three years later, when I withdrew almost $20,000.

Learn your systems, and don't break them

I leave you with a word of warning - every system needs maintenance. Most importantly though, every system has an on-switch. Your systems for success aren't a perpetual motion machine, and they won't keep going if you neglect them.

Skipping a day or two may seem harmless, but each skip weakens the systems. If you stop exercising because you have a cold, when you start again it's almost (but not quite) like building the habit from scratch. Thankfully systems are easier to revive than to build, but reviving them is work, which is frustrating when you had a no-effort system in place.

Secondly, learn what the go-button is for your system, and don't break it. My afternoon workouts were done in the garage, using weight plates and a yoga mat for comfort. In early 2018 Mr. FIRE decided he also wanted to get fit, and moved the workout gear inside the house where they were easier to use. Within a week, my routine was gone - rather than working out when I got home, I would come inside and greet Mr FIRE. Somehow, time would whirl away, and I wouldn't get to my workouts. I didn't pick up the routine again for another 6 months.

Lastly, tie your habits to something you can't miss. For example, if you tell yourself you will exercise at 6pm, and get home at 6:15pm then the moment is gone. However if you're workouts are tied to 'when I get home from work' then you can guarantee you'll exercise every day - at least until you take holidays, or hit the dream of Financial Independence.

Missing the trees for the FIRE forest

In the Financial Independence world we are chasing such big goals and such big amounts of money we can forget the small things. I've been on this journey for a couple of years, even if the blog only started back in December and I have to say that it's full of big boring plateaus. Long stretches of time where it feels like you're running in place like a Looney Tune, nothing is changing and that great life you are chasing is stupidly far away.

Occasionally I need to remember to stop and take stock of what I have, what I have achieved and remind myself why I'm running down this crazy path and not sticking to the road more traveled.

I kicked off this blog back in December because I had gotten so wrapped up in the chase to Financial Independence that I was forgetting to enjoy my life. I was sitting home alone over the Christmas break listening to some pretty depressing music wondering how I got to this place.

I started this blog as a promise to myself that I would reach my goal, and I would have a good time doing it! After all, how truly terrible would it be to read a blog of a depressed miser who after years of being a grouchy jerk finally declared themselves financially free and that now they could be happy.

Lame. So very lame. Instead of eight and a bit years of solid grouching, I'm trying to build the life I want, on the budget I want, so that by the time I hit 35 I can walk away from my desk and never look back. So that all my little side projects can become my day to day and so when I try and find time to visit my mother I'm looking two days ahead, not two weeks ahead.

So today, I'm going to take a moment to look at all the cool stuff that I have in my life. To reflect on the fact that while achieving Financial Independence is still a long way away, the journey has brought some great things into my life that I've let go past without a blink.

I make a little money from this blog and I've met some cool people

When I made $225 from RateSetter referrals I brushed it off as only three referrals. Going into my 10k bucket it's barely a drop. I barely batted an eyelid until I stopped, took stock and realised that I increased my peer-to-peer lending investments by 2% simply by writing a blog I love. 

That one post made me more than 3 months worth of investment returns, but I am so wrapped up in reaching FIRE that it took me a (very long) moment to remember to celebrate. While it's 2% growth on my P2P investment, I was stuck for a moment on the fact that it's a mere 0.03% of what I need for FIRE.

I've also made a little bit of money from Acorns referrals ($2.50), a smidgen from Google AdSense (almost $4, woah!) and importantly I've met some cool bloggers like Mrs. Picky Pincher, Miss Balance, and Mrs. ETT who I'm loving sharing the journey with.

When I borked my knee, I could pay for it

One of the biggest character tests of my adult life was tearing my ACL. I was playing a practice game of roller derby and I had just said to my team "We need to calm down, someone is going to get hurt if we keep playing this crazy." And then I got hurt... yay me. It took five weeks to diagnose my injury properly (the first two 'specialists' said my ACL was definitely fine and I'd torn a minor stabilising muscle) and those weeks were right at the start of winter.

Between being completely unable to skate, run or walk on loose ground and the disappearing sun I struggled massively with my mental health. A huge amount of my identity was (is?) tied up in being a badass roller derby girl that plays a high speed high contact sport that always gets a big reaction when I tell people about it. 

For those weeks before diagnosis I kept improving my strength and balance and feeling like maybe I was getting somewhere, only to have my knee give out under my doing simple stuff like putting on pants. When I had to email my league and announce I was hanging up my skates for the season I cried so hard I couldn't feel my face.

So when the diagnosis came through and I had a choice between a giant hospital bill, or waiting a few more weeks to crawl through the public health system I threw money at the hospital and got surgery the very next day.

I had a few more weeks of dodgy mental health while I hobbled around on crutches barely able to bend my knee. I cried at work at least once a week for no apparent reason, I struggled to sleep, and I forgot what it felt like to walk without 100% razor-sharp focus on each step. 

The first time I caught the bus home after surgery was in the dark and my phone was flat. I nearly had a panic attack waiting for the bus to arrive, missed my stopped and had tears running down my face as I stumbled home. As someone who has always been confident and self-sufficient I felt small, lost and truly afraid.

Thankfully I got back on my bike after six weeks of rehab and pulled myself back together. My self confidence and happiness took some time to come back, but I got there. I'm still strongly contemplating taking up some kind of martial arts to bring back that confidence that I can walk home alone in the dark.

I am so incredibly grateful that I had my finances in a place where I could toss caution to the wind and take care of my mental health before anything else. I did second guess myself paying for the surgery instead of waiting, but I remembered that this is why I save - so when life throws a curve ball I'm ready for it.

I sleep soundly at night knowing I have safety money in the bank

I still remember last year when I was supposed to be getting all excited for a month long holiday and instead was straight up panicking because I'd messed up my finances and needed to find $8,000 for renovations on my rental property. I scraped it together, paid everything with credit cards at the last possible moment to give myself that extra couple of weeks breathing room before I 'really' needed to pay it. It was the worst financial strife I've ever been in. It's another reason why I kicked off this blog and the reason behind my six-month, $20,000 goal.

I was panicking at Mr. FIRE that I had screwed my finances and it was going to ruin my holiday and I didn't want to lean on him because that's not a great relationship and he said to me "Oh my dear, we have food on the table and a roof over our heads. Everything will be okay." 

Firstly, I know things are bad when he calls me 'My Dear'. That's when I'm really stressing and need to be taken care of. Secondly we have food on the table and a roof over our heads. There are so many people in the world that struggle with these things, and I panicked because I couldn't invest for a few weeks.

Now I have enough safety money in the bank that I could lose my job tomorrow and live 3 months without touching my investments. If I had to break open the investment piggy bank I could live almost two years without finding another job.

I don't want to break open the piggy bank, but whenever I stress about money I take a breath, take a step back and think of how secure I am. And how lucky I am to be in this position.

I own a house!

This is the biggie - I own a house! In a time when millennials are whinging giving up on the 'dream' of home ownership, I bought my little two bedroom home without years of painful saving. Thanks to having brilliant financially savvy parents who spoke openly about their investing attempts (and failures) I had it in my mind from a very young age that saving was good. Plus I was terrible at holding my drinks, so in a time when all my friends were burning their money on getting blackout drunk I was snoozing at home watching bad TV and playing free web games. 

The end result was that in last 2014 when I realised that as much as I loved my mother I couldn't live with her anymore, I checked my accounts to see if I could afford a house. Lo and behold I had more than enough for a deposit, and enough income for a mortgage. Within six months of deciding to move out of home, I owned a property. While it may not have been the wisest financial move, I spent $60k less than my budget, brought my partner with me (he pays rent, woo!) and saved my sanity. 

Bonus is that I accidentally bought in the perfect place to sell my car and ride everywhere. Completely accidental, absolutely amazing!

The takeaway thought

I am still more than eight years from my Early Retirement goal date. According to the Mad FIentist lab I'm only six years away, but according to my own maths it's more like ten. I keep getting caught up not seeing the beautiful trees and being overwhelmed by the humongous forest I have yet to grow. 

Financial Independence is a long-term goal and getting wrapped up in the short-term could easily lead me to get distracted by shiny things and stray off course. But there is no point in forging blindly ahead with my eyes fixed on my shoes and missing everything happening around me.

Saving is boring! Stay on track

Alright guys, I have a confession to make. I am bored of savings. Putting aside $20k for my emergency fund is easily the most dull and meaningless savings goal I've ever had. I love investing, pushing money into accounts that fund my retirement is thrilling. I've had to slow that down to save for my emergency fund and I'm bored.

So I prowled the internet for some tips. While there are plenty on ways to change your saving / spending habits, finding ways to stay motivated was harder.
Let me start by saying that I haven't held more than $10,000 in cash since I discovered that I could invest. At first I thought the money on a high interest account was exciting and at 18 I had something like $30,000 in my account earning 6% (from memory). At the time it was great, but then interest rates dropped and I discovered shares and bonds. The first set of bonds I bought were paying 8.7%. From that moment I was hooked, I kept $5,000 in my account for 'emergencies' and every time I hit $10,000 I pushed half of it into an investment.

That system worked for me for years, until I refinanced my home loans and forgot I had to pay for my renovations on my rental property. I had approximately $15,000 free in those home loans, then I refinanced and had nothing. Then the renovation bills came in for $10,000. Oh, and I was about to go on three weeks unpaid leave. In short it was monumentally stupid.

I scraped through on a combination of credit cards and goodwill (renovations went on a payment plan, Mr. FIRE picked up the slack). I managed not to pay any interest on the credit cards but it was a close deal, in some cases by a day or two. So I understand the value of having an emergency fund with six months worth of expenses, but it's just, so, boring.

Stay accountable

My 2016 savings chart
The green line is total of all accounts,
the black line was my target.

Firstly, it's a pun, so this is clearly the best trick. Get it, account-able? Oh never mind, it's a bad pun... I have filled my life with ways to keep this goal in the fore-front of my mind. I have a giant multi-page google spreadsheet that tracks my spending. I have another one on my home computer that tracks and charts my savings. I have this blog. I have a note pinned on the side of my computer (It also tells me to buy an investment property and renovate my bathroom before the end of the year). I have this blog. Writing about this goal is keeping me interested in it. And it stops me from throwing the whole thing out the window and investing, just, it's a close thing...

I also have charts, I love charts!

Colour me rich

With the surge in popularity of adult colouring books it's not surprising that someone figured out how to link colouring to their savings goals. Amy Jones has even kicked off an online business devoted to colouring in bit by bit to track her progress. She sells really cool progress maps that you can download, print off, stick to a wall and colour in bit by bit as you march towards your goal.

Of course, you'd have to pay for Amy's designs, which is probably not the greatest move if you're swimming in debt, even if they are only $20. You can buy a whole book of kaleidoscope patterns for $2, but then you have to count all the spaces and decide how you're going to represent each savings goal on it. Or you can just start one from scratch on your own.

Grab a sheet of paper, decide what appeals to you, how you're going to colour it as you go and sketch away. You'll be far more invested if you drew the progress map yourself, and you can make it the right size for your needs. Plus if you're savings for a house, you can colour in an actual house, rather than something abstract.

I have to admit though, I absolutely suck at art. As much as this is a super cool idea, i don't think it's for me.

Roll six for rewards

Combining my love of board games and conventional motivational wisdom I have just come up with this idea on the fly. Turns out most motivational information on the internet is abstract and boring. Here's what I've just thrown together for myself to get through the last couple of months.

So, here's how it works. At each goal point ($13,000, $15,000, $17,000 and $19,000) I roll two dice. The dice on the left tells me what reward table I get to use. 1-3 is a boozy reward, 4-5 is a fancy dinner, and six is both! The next dice then tells me what reward I get. So in the picture I've rolled a five (fancy dinner) and a three. So I get to have roast for dinner! As dinners go it's on the more expensive scale, especially compared to our usual meals like Chilli Con Carne, so we don't have it too often, but it is delicious!

To be honest though, I really want nachos for dinner, so I might give myself the right to re-roll each dice once when picking rewards, haha, oops! Since I record my current savings once a week, I should have plenty of chances to get some tasty rewards!

What works for you? How do you stay on track for these long drawn out goals. Savings takes time, are you straying off track?