Your New Year’s Resolution: Progressing from the Obvious to the Extraordinary

The time for making resolutions is here again. There is a psychological reason why most people find it hard to live up to the resolutions they make. Just making resolutions doesn’t guarantee that you will follow them. Resolutions have to be backed by a detailed plan of how you are going to follow them. The plan should have a means of measuring your progress as well. Also, it’s better that you have just one resolution in the live state at a time. Trying to follow multiple resolutions is a recipe for failure.

So, what’s that one resolution that you can make this New Year as far as investing is concerned? The one resolution that you can make is to make yourself financially literate. Financial literacy doesn’t mean just knowing about the investment avenues that are out there. It means seeking true investment wisdom. Like most things, the best answers are not available to you readily; they are to be explored. In fact, when you start on the journey of financial literacy, you will first find ordinary answers, the ones that the financial community wants you to know. True investment wisdom will be hidden, and you will have to search for it. Don’t fall prey to what you see readily. The obvious is just a stepping stone to reach the extraordinary, so don’t stop at the obvious itself.

How do you reach the extraordinary? By reading works of the people who are extraordinary. What your financial advisor tells you or what you see on television or what gets printed in newspapers isn’t the extraordinary; that’s the obvious. Here is a short list of the books that you can begin your financial-literacy journey with. After you have read these books, don’t stop. Keep exploring new resources. That’s how you will progress from the obvious to the extraordinary.

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki
One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch
The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau
The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker
Increase Your Financial IQ by Robert T. Kiyosaki
The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli
What Works on Wall Street by James P. O'Shaughnessy