“If I buy this course, how fast can I make back my return on my investment?”
“If I invest in the stock market, what will my gains be?”
“If I purchase this home and fix it up, how much can I make from it.”
ROI: Return Of Investment, is this the best thing to focus on?
We decide whether to make the investment or not based on the time within which we can turn that around, pay off our investment and begin reaping the rewards from it.
Focusing on the ROI is great, but one factor that many of us forget about is The Cost of Inaction (COI).
This idea was brought to me by one of the participants at my Increase Your Income and Impact events years ago. I never had thought of it until that moment.
If you are the type of person that:
has trouble making decisions
you think things through too much,
you’re in this constant analysis paralysis
… I have news for you: you are leaving a lot of money on the table.
Lets take this example: you’re running your business –This applies to your personal life too, if you’re running a household — and you’re exhausted all the time, there’s not enough hours in the day to get it all done. You are considering hiring help, a VA to come help you for a couple hours per week.
You choose not to hire this person because you don’t see an initial return on your investment, you’re seeing it as a cost.
You know you can figure things out on your own, even though this means more hours in front of the computer, less hours with the family and putting your health at risk.
You end suffering from adrenal fatigue and have to be out of commission, resting for the next 3 months.
The cost of Inaction of hiring help is now costing you so much more because you eventually had to hire someone to bring you groceries, clean your home and on top of that you weren’t available to conduct business for 3 months.
How much did this truly cost you? And if you would have hired a VA, you might have even freed up some time for yourself.
Next time you are faced with a problem or you’ve spotted an opportunity where you can invest in something, stop measuring all the pros and cons, and stop looking only for what you will get in return for this investment.
Instead I invite you to look at the Cost of Inaction.
Inaction does not trigger the same immediate regret that making a decision and choosing not to do something might give you, but instead it causes long term disappointment and “what if” rumination.
Is Inaction worse than action?
Action will always help build your confidence, even if it’s the wrong decision, because you can always make a new decision.
On the other hand, Inaction is not only the result, but the cause of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different actions or adjustments will have to follow.
But any action is better than no action at all.
Next time you are faced with a problem or an opportunity, I invite you to look at this through both lenses:
If I make the investment, what will happen? And if I don’t make the investment, what will it cost me?
The reality is, not making the investment may not simply mean staying where you’re at, but instead you might be losing a lot more in the long run.
Please reply and share with me. I’d love to hear your story about ROI and COI.
Have a fabulous day!
PS: If you’d like to watch the video form of this click here
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