Having faith in the stock market

Here's one of many reasons I have been slacking on my Roth IRA savings: I lost my faith in the stock market. I had spent all the time exactly a year ago researching different stocks and mutual funds to invest in and actually started finding some stuff perfect for me and my investment risk level. But I lost momentum, you can probably guess why!

there's no way you get that kind of return anymore...

So anyways, I have been feeling guilty about not saving regularly in my Roth IRA for a while now, but I invest because I felt conflicted.  All the news this past year about the unstable stock market was NOT encouraging. But then something, well someone changed my mind. I learned from a CPA that when it comes to your retirement account, you're looking for long term growth not the day to day fluctuations. So you invest regularly in order to average out the fluctuations. Instead of investing $1000 once a year when you think the timing is perfect, you invest $100 a month and if some are during bad times, others will be at good times so things eventually even out. So to cut things short, I decided to start an automatic payment plan to my Roth IRA. Finally, I am surmounting the courage to invest regularly!