The mistake most people make is focusing entirely on the destination while ignoring everything that comes before it. They see someone with a large portfolio and assume the difficult part was reaching the final number. What they don't see are the years spent getting there. They don't see the small monthly investments, the periods where progress felt slow or the times when saving money felt far less exciting than spending it.

Because of this, many people underestimate the value of the early stages. They look at £2,000, £5,000 or even £10,000 and think it isn't much money compared to what they eventually want. The problem with that thinking is that it ignores what those numbers represent. For most people, reaching £10,000 means they've already developed habits that many people never manage to build.

One of the easiest traps to fall into is believing that bigger numbers automatically create better financial outcomes. Social media makes this worse because people constantly compare themselves to somebody who appears further ahead. There is always somebody with a larger portfolio, a higher income or a better looking investment account.

The result is that people start dismissing their own progress. Instead of being pleased that they've built their first few thousand pounds, they become frustrated because they haven't reached six figures yet. The strange thing is that the people with 6 figure portfolios were usually in exactly the same position years earlier. The difference wasn't that they discovered a secret. The difference was that they continued when the progress still looked small.

The people who eventually become comfortable financially are often focused on something much simpler than most people imagine. Instead of obsessing over a specific portfolio value, they focus on putting money aside regularly and avoiding the mistakes that constantly set people back. It isn't particularly exciting, but it tends to work surprisingly well.

Most wealth is built through repetition rather than brilliance. The same actions are repeated month after month and year after year. A small amount becomes a larger amount, which eventually becomes something substantial. The process rarely looks impressive while it's happening, but that's often because progress is easier to recognise looking backwards than looking forwards.

When I first became interested in investing, I assumed the difficult part would be understanding the market. I spent time reading about stocks, funds and different investment strategies because I thought knowledge was going to be the thing that determined whether I succeeded or failed.

Over time, I realised the difficult part had very little to do with understanding investments. The difficult part was regularly finding money to invest while life continued happening around me. There was always something else I could spend money on. There was always a reason to wait until next month. Looking back, those decisions mattered far more than any individual investment I ever made.

One thing that often gets overlooked is how different the first £10,000 feels compared to the amounts that come afterwards. In the beginning, most of the progress comes from your own contributions. Growth doesn't make a huge difference because there simply isn't enough money invested yet. That's why the first few years can feel frustrating. You're putting money away but the results don't always look dramatic.

Later on, things begin to change. Contributions still matter, but the money you've already invested starts helping as well. That's one of the reasons people sometimes feel that the first £10,000 took forever while later milestones arrived much faster. The process hasn't changed. There is simply more money working in the background than there was at the beginning.

Don't wait for the perfect moment to start. A surprising number of people spend years believing they'll take money seriously once they earn more, get a better job or feel more confident about investing. The problem is that there is always another reason to wait. Meanwhile, time continues moving whether you invest or not.

It's also important not to dismiss smaller amounts of money. A lot of people talk themselves out of investing because they can only afford to put aside a relatively small amount each month. While nobody becomes wealthy from a single contribution, that's not really the point. The point is creating the habit and giving yourself something to build upon over time.