Current market environment performance of dynamic, risk-managed investment solutions.
By Will Hubbard
We live in a world that is increasingly intolerant of waiting. That shift affects almost everything in our lives—and it may also be shaping how investors experience markets.
I saw it in my own life recently. I needed batteries and did not have time to run to the store that day. So I checked Amazon and saw they were available for same-day delivery. Done. A few years ago, I probably would have just picked them up while I was out. Now, apparently, even batteries feel too urgent to wait for.
That’s a small example, but it reflects a broader shift. Entertainment is shorter. Delivery is faster. Feedback is almost instant. More of daily life is built to reduce friction, shorten attention spans, and give us things quickly.
It also feeds the brain’s reward-response loop. Deloitte’s 2025 Digital Media Trends report found that Americans spend about six hours a day on media and entertainment, with social platforms competing directly for that time. The Pew Research Center reported that 46% of U.S. teens say they are online almost constantly. That is a useful reminder of how nonstop life has become, especially for the next generation growing up with immediate gratification as a central feature (or bug) of their lives.
This has real behavioral consequences, and not just for markets. A 2024 review of trends in cognitive sciences noted that the mere presence of a phone can diminish attention and increase errors in cognitive tasks. Smartphone use can also intensify boredom rather than relieve it. Maybe we shouldn’t appease young kids with a tablet while out to eat?
In other words, constant stimulation does not necessarily make us calmer. It can make stillness, boredom, and discomfort harder to tolerate.
That matters for investors because investing still requires all three.
Investing runs on a different timeline
Investing requires patience. It requires uncertainty. It requires the ability to endure periods of unease without assuming that something is broken or that action is immediately needed just because results aren’t instantly available.
Long-term returns do not arrive smoothly, and risk is not a flaw in the system. Risk is part of the price of long-term growth.
The problem is that many investors now bring habits shaped by a culture of immediacy into a process that demands the opposite. When investors begin to expect that same responsiveness from markets, even a modest pullback can create emotional tension.
A rough week, a bad month, or a stretch of uncomfortable headlines can feel much more threatening than it really is, even when nothing meaningful has changed about the investor’s long-term goals, time horizon, or financial plan.
The two sides of risk tolerance
This tension shows up clearly in the concept of risk tolerance.
Risk tolerance has two parts: the ability and willingness to take risk.
Ability is more objective. It includes factors such as time horizon, savings, income needs, and overall financial flexibility.
Willingness is more emotional. It reflects how comfortable an investor actually feels when markets are volatile, headlines are unsettling, and portfolios are under pressure.
Research from a 2020 FINRA Investor Education Foundation highlights how these two can diverge. The foundation found that 42% of respondents reported a lower subjective willingness to take risk during market volatility, yet 66% of those respondents had no actual change in their objective risk tolerance. In other words, their ability to take risk did not change, but their willingness did. This research was further confirmed in a 2024 study, which found that younger investors were less willing to take substantial investment risk than previous generations.
That is an important observation, especially after a long period of strong equity returns. The past decade—especially the performance of the S&P 500 Index—may have distorted some investors’ understanding of what risk really feels like. In a strong market, an aggressive portfolio can feel easy to own. In a weaker market, that same portfolio may suddenly feel unbearable.
Why discipline matters during volatility
That is why understanding risk tolerance matters so much. The goal is not to eliminate anxiety entirely. The goal is to size risk in a way that keeps anxiety contained enough for an investor to stay disciplined and remain on track toward long-term goals. A portfolio can look right on paper and still be wrong in practice if it creates enough fear to trigger poor decisions at the worst possible time.
Reacting emotionally can have real costs. Our internal research shows that the market’s worst days and best days often occur close together. Volatility tends to cluster. If an investor is in the market during the bad days, they need to be there during the good ones, too. Missing part of the rebound can do meaningful damage to long-term compounding.
The role of rules-based investment frameworks
This is one reason rules-based and risk-managed investment frameworks, such as those developed at Flexible Plan Investments, can be so valuable.
These frameworks can help reduce the pressure to make emotional, in-the-moment decisions. They allow us to test different hypotheses over market cycles and evaluate what-if scenarios based on experience.
History doesn’t repeat exactly, but it often rhymes. Understanding how markets behaved during past periods of stress can help inform how investors think about future risks. Insights from these kinds of simulations can help investors respond to changing market conditions with process and discipline instead of fear and immediacy.
Patience in an impatient world
The challenge for investors today is not simply understanding markets. It is resisting a broader cultural pull toward instant reaction and the feeling that every situation requires a decision right now.
In a world that increasingly conditions us to relieve discomfort immediately, successful investing still requires something harder: patience, discipline, and perspective.