Here’s a story that happened to me today.
As I was heading home after dropping off my kids to school this morning, I decided to take the freeway home.
I was running behind because of late start, so I wanted to make up for lost time.
I had a very important meeting to make, and I didn’t want to miss it because that could mean a lost opportunity.
Everything was going fine until I get to the freeway off ramp on Silver ave in San Francisco.
At the end of the off ramp, there is a stop light with 2 lanes.
I need to be in the left lane on the on ramp.
The left lane allows you to go straight or to make a left turn.
The right lane is for right turns only.
When I’m a car or 3 behind the leader, I often use the right lane to avoid waiting my turn, otherwise I risk missing the green light.
This usually works out since the line forms from people waiting to turn left, so me using the right has no down sides….
Except when I try to cut and the person ahead of me is also going straight…lol
But, when I cut the line successfully, you can hear my maniacal laughter from blocks away!
Anyway, today, there was a bus and a long line of cars on in the left lane, so I get bold and try to cut the line from 10 cars back!
That was Mistake 1.
My impatience had me take an unnecessary risk…the light turned red while I was in a right turn only lane.
There were also cars behind me, so I was forced to make a right instead of going straight.
Instead of taking the L and using a slower route home after making this turn (going right leads to light at a busy intersection) I try to “fix my mistake”
As I approach the next light, I see a gas station on the corner.
I tried to use the gas station as a shortcut to avoid the red light at this busy intersection.
This is the start of mistake 2
As I pull in to the gas station, another car pulls in first.
this car is hella slow and blocks the way so I couldn’t use the gas station as a short cut!
So, I back up go around car #1 only to be caught behind another person looking to leave the gas station at the same time.
So now I’m stuck behind a passive driver who is being nice to all the cars already on the road. 
If you are keeping score, that’s the 3rd rash decision that backfired in my face. 
If I woulda stuck with my normal plan (when getting off the freeway, only cut when I’m a few cars behind the leader) I woulda been home much sooner with a lot less aggravation!
Here’s the thing…
This often happens in life, but for many of us, it happens in our finances.
We don’t prepare for the future because our current lives are pretty comfortable.
We aint starving, we have clothes on our backs and food on our table.
Then, we need cash for something like an emergency hospital visit, a destination wedding, unaccounted for car repair, or a fucking pandemic…
Now we are SOL.
So to make up for lost time then we try to take short cuts with trying to get a side hustle or investing in the stock market or crypto without the foggiest idea on how any of it works.
We just get tips from friends and on Facebook.
Even with land investing, this impatience can cause a person to over pay for property so now its hard to sell it for a good ROI.
Another example is that an investor will buy a property that’s too small to be useful for anyone to do anything with because they were impatient and didn’t do their due diligence.
When these shortcuts put us behind, we then we use good money to chase bad money.
We have all been there, but being upset in the moment is not enough to help you in the future with these mistakes.
This cycle can only be prevented when you have a solid game plan and you have the discipline to execute it.
How do you know if your game plan is solid?
Does your plan lend itself to consistency?
Without consistency, you can’t avoid the pitfalls of the feast or famine results that come with rash decisions.
You are also prey to shiny object syndrome that causes you jumping from opportunity to opportunity and wondering why you haven’t made any progress,
Has the plan worked for others before on a consistent basis?
If it hasn’t been verified multiple times, with clear and repeatable results, its not a good plan
does the plan get you to a very specific goal with specific outcomes and time frames?
Someday is not good enough.
The more specific your plan is the better, since you can track progress and make adjustments based on the data.
Look, it’s the holiday season, its time to start planning your 2022.
for most of us, it will look like 2021, which many of us are still recovering from the covid lockdowns.
If you are ready to put a game plan in place so you won’t ever have to make rash decisions to “play catch up” ever again, let me know.
Just send me a dm, or give me shot out in the comments, and we can talk.