Hey Commonstock! I thought I'd share 3 common procrastination traps that I myself fell into before I started investing and reach out to the community to find ways for beginners can avoid this.

1. **The "trying to time the market'** **approach** - I am not comfortable with what's happening in the market. I am going to wait for things to settle down.

2. **The Portfolio Perfectionist -** I am still working out what my ideal portfolio should look like. I need to research loads more to decide what exactly it should consist of.

3. **The "My finances are not ready" excuse** - I just need to save more before I can afford to invest, but first I want to go on that special vacation and negotiate my salary

These were some of the mental blocks that I overcame when I first started investing, would be interested to hear how you got over them, or if you have any other examples of reservations before you began investing yourself?

Number 1: I studied Technical Analysis for years and have found price action, RSI, stage analysis, and gap fills are a very successful strategy for me to find long term entries/exits. Will I time the bottom? Probably not, but TA tells me when not to buy more than when to buy.

Number 2: The perfect portfolio does not exist. It all comes down to ones risk tolerance and time trajectory. Most people would benefit from putting all their money in $VOO and $QQQM and never trying to build an individual portfolio.

Number 3: Those that use this excuse just need proper education on the stock market and how it works. I seek to be very patient with these people to explain to them that investing can be risky but its even more risky if they never do invest.

Hope this helps :)