The high cost of inertia
One of the physics-related definitions of inertia is “the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest”. But inertia applies to money too, and your life.
Think about it. How many extra bank fees have you paid because it was “too much trouble” to change banks or set up direct deposit? (I’m speaking from experience there.) How many gym memberships have you paid for and not used, because you didn’t feel like working out OR admitting to yourself that you weren’t going to use the membership? What about subscriptions that you no longer use? Have you called up and canceled them? There are many little financial things like these that cost us money just because we don’t feel like doing them.
This applies to larger aspects of our lives too, like looking for a new job. Maybe we’re unhappy at our current job, but since it pays the bills we don’t put in the effort necessary to find a new one. Instead, we stay in situations that are less than ideal. Switching jobs is one of the easiest ways to dramatically increase income, since it’s easier to convince a new employer to hire you at a significantly higher rate than it is to convince your existing employer that they should be paying you 30% more.
Don’t let inertia cost you money and opportunities.
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March 21st, 2008 at 8:09 am
The flip side of Inertia is even better than Velocity (the movement of money) … it’s Acceleration (the faster and faster movement of money).
My first $7 mill. took 7 years … the next $7mill. took only 2 more! When you understand the rules of money, Inertia stops, Acceleration starts and …
March 21st, 2008 at 9:37 am
I am very bad at this one. Not so much the bills, I will call and cancel a bill in a heartbeat. But the income. I have stayed at jobs even though I know perfectly well that I could be getting paid more at another company. Or even the same company but in a different department. Just pure laziness, I hate learning new jobs.
March 21st, 2008 at 10:27 am
I watched a friend of mine (who is, professionally-speaking, in this state of “at rest”) repeatedly deflect ideas about what he might do which could lead him to improve his lot and find another job. And he HATES his job! Rather than looking at options, he seems locked in a mindset of only seeing obstacles. His job offers him health insurance, which he could get through his wife’s employer, and that is really the only benefit to working there. Hopefully he will be able to break out of this soon…
Jerry
http://www.leads4insurance.com
March 21st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Yeah, inertia can be a killer.
March 22nd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I know exactly what you’re referring too… it took me 7 months to cancel the gym membership that I wasn’t using. That cost alone would have been enough to take a weekend away or a nice TV. We get complacent way too easily.