Traditionally the New Year is a time to set resolutions – whether it’s digging your running kit from the back of the drawer, learning how to play guitar for the first time in your 40s or quitting alcohol and sugar.

The problem is these resolutions are typically consigned to the bin by the end of January as life takes over and our willpower wanes.

It’s often a period when we look at our money situation too and for investors a time to weigh up where we are and what we want to achieve in the year ahead.

Perhaps we need to learn to give ourselves a bit of break. After all, the cold and dark days of January and February are hardly the time to set ourselves over-ambitious goals.

There’s value from setting aside a wet and wintry afternoon to go through your finances but otherwise it’s possibly better to turn things on their head and work out some things we aren’t going to do when investing in 2022.

While clearly the main reason for putting money into the markets is to protect and grow our wealth, that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, interesting and exciting too. It certainly shouldn’t be something which negatively affects your mental health and putting too much pressure on yourself isn’t going to help your mindset, experience of investing or make you any more successful.

Here are some suggested anti-resolutions to get you started:

Don’t beat yourself up for any mistakes. Everyone gets it wrong from time to time with investing.

There was a useful reminder that even the professionals make missteps in our recent article looking at fund managers’ disappointing 2021 picks.

Don’t get hung up on the fear of missing out. For those with no exposure to the cryptocurrency the performance of bitcoin might have left you feeling jealous last year, particularly if you had friends celebrating some eye-watering gains at times.

Remind yourself that investing is a long-term exercise, you won’t pick every short-term winner and you would have had to be very agile to generate outsized gains from bitcoin. Over the last 12 months it is only up 8%, compared with more than 10% for the plain old FTSE 100.

Don’t convince yourself it’s too late to get started.

Maybe you’ve neglected your investments recently or never really taken the plunge at all. Depending on your age, you might think it’s just too late to get started. It’s not.

Anything you do now could help you enjoy a more prosperous future. Forgot about what you might have done in the past and focus on what you can do now. Whatever your position Shares will be on hand with help, support and ideas in 2022.

BOOK COMPETITION RESULTS

We had a great response to our Christmas book competition. Thanks to everyone who entered and congratulations to our winners, drawn at random. Barbara Heffernan wins the copy of Free Capital, Ankit Singh will receive The Smart Money Method and James Humphrys is the recipient of The End of the Everything Bubble.

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