The night sky has mesmerised humankind for centuries, and my recent experience in Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh), one of India’s finest stargazing destinations, was no exception.

What fascinates me most is that every time we look at the stars, we’re actually looking back in time. Take the Pole Star, for example; its light reaching us tonight began its journey 433 years ago. In a way, the night sky’s beauty is a gentle illusion: we’re not seeing the stars as they are now, but as they were centuries ago.

This delusive beauty has a striking parallel with financial planning: the goals we set and the journeys we imagine are often just projections of what we know today. But the future, much like the night sky, doesn’t reveal itself instantly.

When investments don’t unfold as imagined, our minds resist, and investors often give up before reaching the goal.

Why We Struggle with the Future

Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, in his seminal work Thinking, Fast and Slow, describes a powerful idea: What You See Is All There Is (WYSIATI).

Human decisions are based mostly on the information at hand, not on the unseen possibilities of the future. Understanding this concept can significantly enhance our awareness of our decision-making process.

Our brain works in two ways:

• System 1 is fast, instinctive, and automatic; great for quick actions but prone to snap judgments.
• System 2 is slower, logical, and deliberate, but often lazy, tending to default to System 1.

Because of WYSIATI, investors tend to act only on what they have directly experienced. Someone who has seen just one year of equity market ups and downs may make decisions only from that narrow view, ignoring the wealth of evidence about long-term investing.

This limitation is also tied to fear. Fear isn’t just about visible threats; it’s often about uncertainty. A valley in Tawang may look stunning in daylight but unsettling through that same window at night, not because of danger, but because the mind has nothing to process in the dark. Similarly, in investing, people fear the unknown future, even though history shows that the probability of wealth creation tends to increase over time.

Ego Depletion: Why Willpower Isn’t Enough

Kahneman also discusses ego depletion, the idea that willpower is finite and drains with use. In one experiment, participants asked to resist chocolates and eat only radishes gave up earlier on a challenging task. Their mental energy had already been depleted by self-control.

Investors face a similar problem. Relying solely on discipline to stay invested for 10-15 years is like resisting chocolates every day, exhausting and unsustainable. The solution isn’t stronger willpower, but smarter design.

From Effort to Habit

Think of learning to drive. At first, you consciously manage the clutch, gear, accelerator, and mirrors. Every action feels effortful. Years later, you drive home while chatting on Bluetooth, barely noticing how smoothly you navigated traffic. What changed? Repetition turned deliberate System 2 actions into automatic System 1 habits.

The same principle can make investing sustainable. Instead of asking investors to commit upfront for a decade or more, break the journey into smaller, low-effort steps.

• Start small: Commit to staying invested for 12 months.
• Celebrate progress: Mark the milestone, even with a small reward. Incentives drive behaviour
• Stretch gradually: Extend to 18 months, then 24. By the third stage, the investor would already have stayed invested for 36 months, longer than India’s average holding period.

Each step feels familiar, creating a WYSIATI comfort zone and, over time, investing shifts from a conscious struggle to an automatic habit.

Why This Matters

In financial planning, we often stress the importance of staying invested for 10-15 years. But most people cannot think beyond the time they’ve already experienced. That’s why long-term equity investing often fails in practice.
Contrast this with insurance or real estate. People stay invested because they’ve seen parents or relatives build wealth that way. For equities, such lived experience is still developing across families.

A gradual, habit-forming approach bridges this gap. It builds confidence, reduces fear of the unknown, and makes wealth creation a natural process rather than a forced act of discipline.

The Way Forward

Star-gazing reminds us that what we see is the past, not the present. Investing works the same way: outcomes take time. Willpower fades, but habits last.

Start not with 15 years, but with 12 months. Build the habit, then stretch. Step by step, small milestones grow into lasting wealth.