One phenomenon still amazes me in my years of being interested in finance, writing about it, and hanging out on financial forums and news sites. I don’t have a name for it other than “Failure to see the big picture.” It often happens like this: Someone posts their story or an article about financial success. It may be about climbing out of a massive debt hole or achieving early retirement. The story doesn’t even have to be about a significant achievement. It may just be that the person saved $5 on groceries using coupons or cut out one recurring subscription to save $15/month. Inevitably, somewhere in the comment section, someone will denigrate the achievement and say, “Well, that’s nice for them, but it will never work for me because [insert reason here].”
For example, someone who got out of debt will mention that they got a job making more money to help solve the problem. Someone will say, “That’s nice for you, but jobs aren’t abundant here. It’ll never work for me.” Or if someone mentions that being childfree helped them achieve FIRE, others will say, “Great, but I already have three kids. This won’t help me.” Even if someone mentions something small, like dropping a subscription to Netflix, someone will say, “Well, I can’t live without my Netflix, so too bad for me.”
The thing is, the sticking points of these stories: the childfree-ness, the extra job, or the Netflix are almost never the entire story. There is usually a long list of things a person did to get out of debt, achieve FIRE, or accomplish any other financial achievement. Usually, the stories include things like cutting back on expenses, using coupons or rewards, or practicing creative frugality. However, the commenters focus on the one thing in the story that isn’t possible (or easy for them) and discard the entire achievement as impossible and out of reach for all but the most “entitled.”
This is the wrong approach. Not everything about a success story has to be immediately achievable in order for you to gain some value from it. And you shouldn’t expect a story to be completely comparable to your situation, anyway. We are all different, and that means that different approaches work or don’t work for us. However, just by aiming for the same goals, we have enough in common for at least some aspects of our experiences to be valuable to others. If you can take even one useful thing from someone else’s experience, their story has value for you. And even if you can’t find one thing in their story to act upon, it may still serve as a lesson about what not to do.
In order to achieve your goals and learn from others, you must look at the big picture and stop focusing on the one or two details that don’t match your situation. Instead of focusing on the fact that a person works in tech with a high salary, focus on the parts of the story where they talk about making the most of that salary. There are likely things in there that you can use, even if you earn a much smaller salary. If someone lives off the grid as a form of extreme frugality, you don’t have to live off the grid, too, in order to gain value from their story. Perhaps they have a special gardening technique that you can adapt, or they have creative ways of reducing/reusing things. It’s rarely all or nothing.
Focusing on the unachievable/irrelevant details and then dismissing the entire story is often a handy excuse for not trying at all. “Well, if they have x, y, and z, and I don’t, I’ll never get out of debt so why bother trying,” seems to be the logic. These people are desperate for someone to confirm their belief that success is impossible. When they see a story with a detail that doesn’t match their experience, it gives them the ability to say, “See? It’ll never work for me.”
And that’s the saddest thing about this phenomenon. If people were willing and able to see the big picture, they’d see that even tiny steps move them along the road to success. Fine. So you can’t save $50,000/year on a $40,000 salary. But you can probably save something if you take some of the poster’s other creative tips on board. And saving something is better than nothing. Those small somethings will grow over time. But if you dig in and refuse to try because someone else’s circumstances don’t exactly match your own, you’re doomed to a life of financial trouble.
Incidentally, it isn’t just in finance where this is a problem. Another example is weight loss. That’s where I first encountered this failure to see the big picture. At one point, I was seriously overweight. I read a lot of success stories, looking for tips and tricks that might help me lose weight. Many stories were beyond my experience. Someone who could exercise all day because she didn’t work? The person who had a personal chef? The person who took a drug or had surgery? Yeah, none of that matched my life.
However, all of those stories offered a tiny nugget of wisdom somewhere. Maybe it was a meal idea that I could make on my own or an exercise I could add to my repertoire. I took what I could use and discarded the rest. Instead of getting hung up on the unachievable part of the story, I studied the parts I could use. Gradually I lost the weight. I did it by piecing together hundreds of stories, not by looking for one that I could relate to 100%. By not waiting for that mythical story, I was able to move along the path to success. Had I waited for someone whose circumstances exactly matched mine, I’d still be overweight.
It’s the same way in finance. Take what you can use from others’ stories. Adapt to your circumstances as much as possible. Take that one tiny nugget and add it to your overall plan. Over time, you’ll cultivate habits, hacks, and tricks that enable you to succeed. But if you just throw up your hands and count all the reasons why others can succeed but you never will, guess what? You never will.
Read More:
- Frugality Doesn’t Have to Be Painful
- Rich Habits vs. Poor Habits
- Frugality Isn’t Common Knowledge
- Frugality: Normal or Extreme Behavior?
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Jennifer Derrick is a freelance writer, novelist and children’s book author. When she’s not writing Jennifer enjoys running marathons, playing tennis, boardgames and reading pretty much everything she can get her hands on. You can learn more about Jennifer at: https://jenniferderrick.com/.
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