Last Updated on April 26, 2026 by Michelle
Through books like Nick Maggiulli’s Just Keep Buying and Ray Dalio’s Life & Work Principles, I started my investing discipline strategy 3 years ago. With a spreadsheet.
Not an elegant one.
Not a sophisticated model.
An income.
An aggressive savings rate.
A financial independence goal set for 2028.
On paper, it looked unrealistic.
I just focused on one thing:
Show up monthly.
The Subtle Problem Most People Don’t See
When people think about investing, they often think in outcomes.
Returns.
Timing.
Opportunities.
But the real friction isn’t external.
It’s internal.
It’s the quiet tension between:
what we plan to do
and what we actually sustain
Most strategies don’t fail because they are wrong.
They fail because they are not lived long enough.
The First 6 Months: Staring at the Spreadsheet
In the beginning, nothing felt like progress.
For five to six months, I kept staring at the spreadsheet.
Looking at the same numbers.
The same projections.
The same gap.
It felt static.
Almost pointless. But I knew having read the books and listened to the investors through their past interviews that this is very normal and expected in the beginning.
Something else was happening beneath the surface.
The act of staring — repeatedly — started to sharpen my thinking.
I began noticing things I had overlooked for years.
Old equity options I had completely forgotten about.
Cash sitting idle across different accounts.
Investments that were unstructured and not working together.
It wasn’t dramatic.
It was quiet discovery.
And then, something shifted again.
My brain started solving the problem.
Not through intensity.
But through clarity.
Once the goal became specific — a number, a timeline —
my thinking began to organise around it.
I started asking better questions:
How should I allocate my assets?
What is actually working vs just sitting there?
Where can I redirect existing capital instead of chasing new income?
The strategy didn’t come from forcing ideas.
It emerged from attention
A Simpler Strategy Than It Looks
Eventually, everything distilled into something very simple.
Every month, I bought 3–4 ETFs.
No timing.
No reacting.
No optimisation.
Just repetition.
At first, it felt mechanical.
Almost underwhelming.
There was no sense of “progress” in the early months.
Only consistency.
When the Numbers Started to Shift
About six months in, something changed.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
The spreadsheet began to reflect something I hadn’t expected:
Momentum.
Mark-to-market gains started appearing.
Small at first. Then more noticeable.
But more importantly:
I was hitting my savings / investment targets.
35% of income invested in 2023
44% in 2024
50% in 2025
The numbers were no longer theoretical.
They were lived.
And that changed something deeper than returns.
It proved the power of consistency which led to confidence.
The Real Outcome Wasn’t Financial
The biggest shift wasn’t the gains.
It was the removal of doubt.
Before that, the goal felt distant.
After that, it felt… inevitable.
Not because I had arrived
But because I had evidence that the path was working.
Confidence didn’t come from returns.
It came from alignment repeated over time.
Financial Independence Became a Direction, Not a Deadline
My goal is financial independence by 2028.
And I am still far from it.
That hasn’t changed but I am definitely closer to the outcome and because I can see the change over the past 3 years, I have confidence that the next 2 years trajectory will get me to financial independence by 2028.
The goal no longer feels like something I need to chase.
It feels like something I’m already moving towards.
This is the quiet shift from:
achievement → alignment
The goal didn’t become smaller.
I became more stable in how I approached it. This is consistent with how I feel about my daily habits that will get me to being my own role model.
The Second Lesson: What Happens When Markets Fall
In the past three years, there were two moments that tested this alignment.
April 2025 — market drop following tariff policies
March 2026 — volatility during the US–Iran conflict
In both moments, the market turned.
Prices dropped drastically quickly.
Uncertainty increased.
This is where most investing strategies break.
Not because the math changes.
But because the emotion does.
A Different Internal Response
In both downturns, I noticed something unexpected.
I wasn’t anxious.
I wasn’t desperate.
Instead, I felt calm and excited even that I could buy more of the same ETFs with the same monthly savings.
I had something many investors don’t:
Time.
Time to hold.
Time to continue.
Time to let the strategy work.
So I did the same thing.
I bought more.
Why Time Changes Everything
When you don’t have time, volatility feels like risk.
When you do have time, volatility feels like movement.
The external event is the same.
But the internal experience is completely different.
This is time wealth.
Not how much money you have.
But how much time your decisions can absorb.
The Discipline Was Never About Willpower
Looking back, the strategy worked not because it was optimal.
But because it was sustainable.
It didn’t require:
constant attention
emotional energy
perfect decisions
It only required consistency.
And consistency is easier when your life supports it.
What This Has to Do With Aging Well
Investing is often framed as a financial exercise.
But over time, it becomes something else.
It becomes a reflection of:
how you use your time
how you manage your energy
how you relate to uncertainty
Aging well is alignment.
And investing, done properly, reinforces that alignment.
A Small Personal Shift
In the beginning, I tracked everything.
Daily changes.
Small fluctuations.
Over time, I stopped.
Not because it didn’t matter.
But because it didn’t need my attention anymore.
The system was working.
And I could return my focus to living.
The goal was never to become someone who watches markets.
It was to become someone who doesn’t need to.
The Quiet Truth About This Investing Journey
I’m still not financially independent.
The 2028 goal is still ahead.
But something more important has already happened.
I trust the process.
Because once trust is established:
decisions become simpler
emotions become quieter
progress becomes steadier
A Framework You Can Borrow
Define your version of enough
Build a strategy you can repeat
Measure consistency, not performance
Let time do its work
A Quiet Closing Thought
The spreadsheet didn’t change my life.
The repetition did.
Because financial independence isn’t built in a moment of brilliance.
It’s built in quiet months
where nothing seems to happen
and yet everything is slowly compounding beneath the surface.
If you are interested in my investing discipline strategy, you can read my prior blog on my financial independence retire early framework.
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