3 Things That Will Hold You Back From Growing Your Investment Portfolio

Through my interactions with others, I realised that many people think that growing their portfolio is about the constant hunting for hot stocks.

However, what I realised over the years, is that when it comes to investing for financial freedom - it is not just about investment returns alone.

In fact, in this article, I share with you three things that could be potentially holding you back from growing your portfolio to a cash-generating machine that covers your expenses.

Clarity Is Power

Imagine this, let's say we are at a running track together.

And I told you this,

"Start running."

How fast do you think you are going to run?

Well, my guess is that you are certainly not going to be sprinting.

The reason is because, I did not give you an incentive to sprint.

But what if I told you this,

"If you can run 400m in less than two minutes, I will give you $10,000."

Now, all of a sudden - there's an incentive to actually be sprinting - because right now, there's a goal.

When we have a destination, we begin to understand what we are working towards to. And there is the secret to growing your investment portfolio.

Most people, when they invest, they only see it as a form of hobby. Thinking that the stock market is just a place for you to "gamble" your money. This is the reason why they never got much long term success in investing.

However, for myself, I see the stock market as the key to becoming financially free. I see the stock market as something that will replace my income - so that working at a 9-to-5 is a choice, rather than a must. For me to be able to do that - I needed clarity.

This is why, when I worked with my students, I will always get them to firstly work out the numbers that they need to become financially free. This way, they will have something to work towards to.

Only once they have the numbers, they can then reverse engineer their goals, and take concrete action steps to fulfil their financial freedom.

Once you are able to know exactly what your goals are, you can then start sprinting towards growing your investment portfolio.

And that's what the next two steps is about -  growing your portfolio fast.

Do One Thing At A Time

I cannot stress this enough, and if there's nothing that you take away from this blog post, let it be this:

This is a quote from Warren Buffett.

However, it is important to be especially careful with "learning".

In today's information age, it is not about the lack of information anymore. A simple google search, and you will find countless articles, strategies, tactics on how you can invest profitably, be it in forex, stocks, properties, etc.

Most people have this thinking that, "All the information are free online, why would anyone pay for a course?"

Well, that statement is true - there is a ton of good information online.

The problem is - there is too much information.

Because of information overload, people tend to jump from one opportunity to another. Here's how it often turned out:

• They will try forex for a month, realised it is not working for them - they quit because it is too active for them. They then try property investing.
   
• They will try to study property investing, realised it is too complicated for them, they quit.
  
  
• They will try stock trading for six months, realised they are not making as high returns as they wanted, they changed to building their own business.
  
  
• They will try building their business, they realised that it was so hard to create their own product/service - then they quit. They then try affiliate marketing since they don't have to create their own products.
  
  
• They will try to do affiliate marketing, and realised it was so stressful that they are putting in so much effort, but with so little returns. They quit, and went back to forex trading instead.

Here's the thing, I can assure you:

• There are multi-millionaires who built their wealth through forex trading.
  
  
• There are multi-millionaires who built their wealth through properties.
  
  
• There are multi-millionaires who built their wealth through stock trading.
  
  
• There are multi-millionaires who built their wealth through their business.
  
  
• There are multi-millionaires who built their wealth through affiliate marketing.

In every single field out there, there are people who are succeeding at very high levels.

You might be wondering - what is the difference between those who succeed, and those who don't.

The difference between those who succeed and those who don't - is the ability to F.O.C.U.S.

F.O.C.U.S stands for Focus on One Course Until Systemized.

When I was investing in the stock market, and was making decent returns (> 10%), I went to dabble into other fields such as e-commerce, forex, affiliate marketing, etc. Because I wanted to get more capital to become financially free earlier.

You can probably guessed what happened - I failed in all of those ventures.

Why?

Because the truth is, at that point of time, I have yet to build systems for my investment portfolio. As a result, I was spending too much time on my investment portfolio, and could never had the energy and attention to focus on other ventures.

However, right now - as I implement systems to make my investment journey much simpler, and that gave me the freedom and time that I have today, to write blog articles for my readers.

So if you are struggling to grow your wealth, chances are that you are trying to do too many things at once. My advice to you is stay focus on one course, and systemize the process.

Invest Most Of Your Net Worth

After you have build a system for your investing, here's the next step:

Invest most of your net worth. This was a golden advice that I got from a multi-millionaire investor who built his wealth through the stock market.

You see, when most investors just started investing, they will always start small - maybe like $500. And that's good advice - to discover what stock market investing is like. However, once you have find a system that works for you, you want to be able to scale your wealth by adding more capital into it.

A word of caution. You should only apply this step once you have developed a system that works for you. Never try to invest most of your net worth on an unproven system.

However, I do know that some of us might feel that keeping some cash in the bank makes us feel safer.

For those who have been following my blog, you will realise that I don't really keep much money in the bank, but rather in my brokerage account. This is because I know that my money in the brokerage account will grow much faster than just leaving it in the bank. And by keeping money in the bank, I will just be losing money everyday due to inflation.

However, how do you build a system that works?

There are two ways to do this:

1. Trial and error
2. Learn the systems that was already built by someone else

Personally, I did both of these ways.

I first did trial and error, and was constantly reading books and watching YouTube videos to discover what works and what does not.

But it was taking way too much time.

(Remember what I said about information overload?)

I soon realised that - if I wanted to achieve financial freedom earlier - I had to do things differently.

This was when I started attending programs and implementing what I have learned, and my growth exploded.

(But I did not attend all these courses all at one time. Remember F.O.C.U.S, I will only focus on one course at a time, until I systemized it - before moving on to the next course.)

You see, it is kinda like trying to get through the jungle, and you had two choices:

1. Wander around the jungle for months, and eventually getting out.
2. Spend $100 to get a map and getting out of the jungle in a few hours.

Many people will fall into the trap of exchanging their time to try to "figure" it out their own. But to me, I realised that money is speed. 

If I could spend $100 to get a map and save me months of time, I will gladly buy the map. Similarly, if I spent the $20,000+ in myself, equipping myself with the ability to become financially free 15 years earlier - personally, I think that it is a good investment.

What's Next?

I talked quite a fair bit about investing in yourself, and you might be thinking that I am going to offer you my course.

Well...

The truth is that I had built a free resource hub for investors, called the Stock Investing Hub.

In our jungle example, this is almost like a map to your investing journey, where I share with you the fundamentals of investing, what price to buy, what price to sell, etc.

Initially, I was hesitant to build this free resource.

For myself, I have been sharing about investing for quite some time now, and I know for a fact that most people don't cherish free stuff.

However, that was the wrong mindset that I had.

I should have been focusing on those who are hungry to succeed, rather than people who are not ready to commit. And it warms my heart when I received emails like these.

And by the way, if you like content like these, the best way to get notified is to join my newsletter.

This way, you also get access to my 8-Point Checklist, that I personally used to avoid investing in poor quality companies.

Finally, if you found this blog post helpful, leave a comment below and share this to two people whom you think might benefit from reading this post 🙂