Good investing is a dish. Here's the recipe.

What separates WILDLY successful investors, who’ve made millions if not billions of dollars in the markets, from “investors” who don’t get anywhere even after several decades?

If you put successful investors in a room and got them to have a nice long chat about their approach to investing, you’d see certain key ideas crop up again and again. In this blog post, we've distilled these ideas into 10 powerful and actionable principles that’ll make your #InvestForGood journey more successful:

1. Define your goals: Simply writing down your goals is a big first step. And precision is optional: “Make 1 crore in 10 years” is a fantastic kick-off goal to get the ball rolling!
   
   
2. Be a compounding cop: Don’t let anything interrupt your investments’ compounding. Good investors recognise that compounding takes time. The best investors know interrupting compounding is a crime.
   
   
3. Embrace systematic investing: Systems create disciplined approaches. Use them often. And remember — you can benefit not just from SIPs, but from SIP top-ups, STPs, and SWPs too!
   
   
4. Diversify, diversify, diversify: Spread your investments like butter: across Indian equities, international stocks, bonds, real estate, and even gold. It'll make you feel smarter and your portfolio (slightly) safer.
   
   
5. Add resilience to intelligence: Accept that there will be short-term ups and downs. Staying invested through fluctuations and investing more during falls will make your secret sauce saucier.
   
   
6. Emotion ejection: Don't let fear, greed, or FOMO hijack your financial journey. Stay disciplined, stick to the plan, and leave your emotions at the door.
   
   
7. Prioritise quality over past returns: When you invest, spend some time and effort in understanding the quality of what you’re investing in, rather than merely obsessing over returns.
   
   
8. Past performance belongs to the past: Don’t be greedy and invest based on the previous few years' outsized returns, no matter which fund it is. Study rolling returns instead: it’s just a better way of understanding performance instead of simply looking at past performance. Value solid consistency over occasional brilliance.
   
   
9. Trust the process: Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither is wealth. Good things take time, don’t rush it. Staying in is more important than getting every single decision right.
   
   
10. Seek professional advice: Even the best investors don’t shy away from seeking expert advice when investing their own money. It’s okay to ask for help!

So there you have it: a brief but incredibly value-dense masterclass that the top investing gurus would vouch for. These 10 principles encapsulate decades of investing wisdom, which makes them time-tested and thus incredibly powerful.

Start implementing them one by one to see the positive impact they have on your portfolio. And remember: while the journey is yours alone, you can always use the wisdom of the greats as your compass!