Coaching my daughter’s Pre K-K rec league soccer team is equal parts hilarious and challenging.

At the beginning of every season, games loosely resemble a swarm of bees moving around the field together. Occasionally one player will break away – or sit down on the field to pick flowers – but for the most part, everybody is bunched together trying to kick the ball with very little success.

In my experience, it’s not all that different from how most people approach making financial decisions.

What did my parents do? What do my friends do? Well if everybody’s doing it, I should too.

Back on the soccer field, after a few practices, we’ve usually covered the concepts of playing offense vs defense, how we need to spread out on the field, and how moving the ball by passing it to each other often leads to the ultimate prize – goals!

Similarly, when you opt out of running with the pack on your financial decision making, it usually becomes a lot easier to make progress and enjoy the game of life.

Taking your swarm of competing financial priorities and dropping them into a system that clearly lays them all out in a tangible way is empowering. When you can see how your individual decisions stand to impact your overall financial well-being, you’re bound to make better decisions. And when you can see and feel the progress you’re making through those good decisions, something you used to dread is suddenly an enjoyable experience.

So you can work real hard to follow the pack but remain unsure of whether or not you’re making any real progress. Or you can learn how the game is played, work smarter not harder, and make real progress towards your financial well-being.

Having experienced both first hand — as both a soccer coach and a financial planner — I’ve learned that the latter often works out better in the end.

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