Whenever I have a conversation at work or at home, after probably too little discussion, I tend to pivot to, "Ok, so what do we do from here?" For better or worse, I tend to be solution oriented and prefer to spend less time (occasionally to my detriment) discussing how we got here or what the problem actually is and move quickly to a decision that hopefully corrects the issue.
In a market like we're in today, action oriented folks can feel the need to adjust their portfolio too often, usually to their long term detriment. If they can just make this one tweak, the thinking goes, I can solve this problem. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. The investor doesn't control the broader market, or financial conditions, or the price of energy. They can feel powerless, an uncomfortable and unusual position to be in, as the market continues to draw down.
I try to remind our clients that they are action oriented, the big difference is that the action happened last year! For our clients, we are constantly refining financial plans to ensure that we are prepared for the swings the market can, and does, regularly provide. It can be difficult to do nothing when it feels like we should be doing something, but they've actual done the reverse and planned to whether this storm while the sun was still shinning.