The Power Of Community
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
We all can (and often do) romanticize the lone warrior. The individual who, through sheer grit and intense drive, achieves their goals and fulfills their wildest dreams.
As a society, we embrace narratives of individuals who achieve greatness on their own - think of iconic Hollywood characters like Arya Stark (for the Game of Thrones heads out there), James Bond or Rocky Balboa. These icons and stories that surround them typically deemphasize the aid and support of those who help them vanquish evil or win the fight.
It’s easy to think that an individualistic approach is the only way to forge ahead to achieve our goals. But even though it’s tempting to romanticize these kinds of narratives, I’m here to tell you that it is all hogwash. Codswallow. Bull sh*t.
Sure, we can struggle on our own to try to get to where we want to go. But it’s sure as heck made a lot easier when we surround ourselves with people who are supportive, offer mentorship, and ultimately help keep us accountable.
In other words, achieving your goals - financial or otherwise - is made so much easier when you find a community of like minded weirdos.
Let's be honest, we’re all a little weird.
Finding My Fellow Financial Nerds
Starting off this year, I was prepared to hunker down as a solo saver and through sheer will achieve my goal of saving 50% of my net income. To be honest, preparing myself for an entire year of solo saving was extremely daunting. And I’m not going to lie, the first few months were tough. I definitely felt on an island, where my only companions were either aged or dead author-investors or bloggers from halfway around the world preaching the benefits of saving a poop-ton of money (poop ha ha…I’m five).
This combined with the fact that I pretty much completely changed how I was living resulted in a bit of loneliness at the beginning. But then something miraculous happened, I met people saving as much as I was attempting to save - or more!
Yeah, that’s right, there are nutters out there saving more than 50% of their income.
And strangely enough, I met them through this blog. As a result of writing about my experience - essentially yelling into an internet sized void - resulted in a chance connection with a group of random humans working toward similar goals.
The internet is truly a wild place.
Connecting with this group, I was able to tap into a network of people with more experience, who were willing to offer very much appreciated and needed advice and insight. And the coolest thing is that this group is local to my area. I no longer had to try to connect with people through message boards or homing pigeons.
Not only am I able to “talk shop” (aka talk about all things saving and investing) with the group, but I’ve been able to develop valuable friendships along the way. No financially related topic is off limits, it’s truly a wonderful group to share ideas, offer insights, and learn from a wide range of personal experiences.
By finding this group I found a community of similar minded humans. And I can confidently say, building relationships and attending gatherings has certainly helped me move closer to my goal this year.
Without my fellow financial nerdy friends, I’m not sure where I’d be. I might be on the same path I am now, but I sure as heck would be a lot lonelier.
The Power of People
The fact of the matter is even though our society has placed individual striving on a pedestal, as social creatures, we thrive when surrounded and encouraged by like minded people who are willing to offer a helping hand now and again.
And you might be thinking, “well duh, Jill. Of course people can help us achieve our goals.” And yet, here we are, a lot of the time putting a ton of pressure on ourselves individually. If we’re really honest with ourselves, we still try to accomplish our goals completely alone (I know I do, I’m terrible at asking for help).
The point here is that it’s extremely easy to have a goal and through sheer will of force try to go it alone. But we can go a lot farther when we have a little powerhouse group of people surrounding us who are headed in a similar direction.
Through encouragement, reminders, celebration of individual and collective wins, groups and communities help to reinforce what we are attempting to achieve. And beyond our goals, groups and communities are so incredibly important to our health and wellbeing. They add lightness and perspective, positivity and cause for reflection.
As this truly eventful year draws to a close, I am in awe of what I have been able to accomplish. And by surrounding myself with amazing humans and supporters, I know I’ve been able to go further than I would have otherwise.
[Thank you to those unconventional and loving humans…you know who you are.]
So whatever your goal, get out there and find your own group of weirdos, people on similar paths who you can build supportive relationships with. Together, you’ll move mountains.
Remember, you’ve totally got this!
Over the past many weeks of creating content and templates, I realize that to help sustain this passion project I would be grateful for your support!
For those with a dollar to spare, I’ve set up a Buy Me A Coffee account for folks to contribute to here and there. For those frugally focused, I would be incredibly grateful if you were to share my work with your networks and folks you think would enjoy my journey (via email, social media, or homing pigeon).
A special thank you to those who contributed to my Buy Me A Coffee or shared a post! Your support means the world to me - truly.
Whether you're able to contribute or not, I’m so glad you’ve joined me on this journey!
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