Stop waiting for the perfect moment

This is yesterday’s GBP-USD FX chart for the last month. Nearly a month ago I moved the USD proceeds from selling my house in the Cayman Islands to the UK, ready to convert into GBP to buy a house here.

A week or so before that, the GBP-USD rate had dropped to a very attractive 1.23 (the 5 year average is about 1.30), so when the money arrived in my UK account and the rate was 1.25 that day, I thought I’d wait for it to drop back down, looking forward to exchanging to more GBP than I had forecast months before.

Of course, the chart showed what has happened was the opposite, with the rate now up to over 1.28. By waiting for the perfect moment the rate has moved 2.5% against me in less than a month, the financial impact on me is now more than the cost of the car I just bought.

A mentor of mine taught me: “the Universe will keep teaching you the same lesson, in different forms, until you choose to learn it”.

Though I am known for making decisions fast, sometimes I am arrogant enough to think that, by waiting just a little longer, I can make the decision at the perfect moment rather than simply benefitting from action rather than inaction at the right time.

Perhaps at some point, I will learn that perfection is the enemy of progress and simply act when conditions are right and stop waiting for the perfect moment.