Fear of failure is one of the driving forces for stunting growth in many people. Our subconscious wants to protect us, but can often replay back what we tell ourselves through our conscious. We learn through our decisions. Many of our decisions aren’t necessarily great but they may not come to bite us because of circumstances. When circumstances turn against our favour, we can beat ourselves up. Like every person on the planet, I have lots of experience in this matter.
I started trading stocks a couple months ago. Since that time I have grown my portfolio by about 40% which is pretty great. However, there has been lots of learning in the process. Some days are negative and I have gotten sucked into making trades that were against my better judgement only to have them come back and bite me. Most of the time the amount I lose is very small, but the amount I could have gained if I had waited or made different decisions is very large. There have been days where I felt like a ***** and had to tell myself to stick with the program. I then start thinking of other things until I get out of the negative thought process, but isn’t easy or fun.
You may think to yourself “well how bad could he have it with such good gains?”. Well for one I have implanted a huge goal for the end of the year that is well within my reach if I stick to the plan. Second, all of us can get emotionally caught up in the moment instead of seeing the bigger picture and counting our blessings. If we live in a place where we don’t have to worry for our safety and have food on the table, there is really not reason we should let negative emotions consume us. So the best thing we can do is figure out how to prepare for the future days where situations happen that can send us in a downward spiral.
Here are are few things you can do to set yourself up for success:
- Have your beliefs about your future and present self written down where you can access them easily–such as your phone and also somewhere visible that you frequent—like on your fridge.
- Set a clear visual in your mind of who you are becoming (or already are) and make sure this visual is cemented in your conscious. If you are speaking good things to your conscious and subconscious daily then it will be much harder for the world to get you down.
- Make sure a positive person you love knows what you are believing for yourself and can speak good things over you in times of weakness. Don’t tolerate negative thinkers in your life. Remember, your life is an outcome of your thoughts and choices. If you want an upgrade you first need to change your thoughts. This can be easier said then done, especially if you are in a negative though pattern. That is why it is so important to set the right thought pattern. Think of your life like the stock market. Your mindset will get you somewhere. Some who don’t prepare well will be carried by the wind and will most likely go up and down but never changing the trend to the positive. Others who prepare will change the trend positive. Depending on your goals and mindset the more growth you will have. You will have times of incredible growth. You will have other times that don’t feel so good. But if you know how you are setting yourself up, you will keep trending up. (use photo of stock market line with arrow trending up)
- Anchor a future picture in your mind about yourself in the future through an emotional experience. This means get a clear picture in your mind of what you are going to look and feel like. Set an anchor so that you can return to the thought/picture by doing something unrelated like rubbing your middle middle knuckle. So how does this work? You would get a clear picture and while you do this rub your middle knuckle. Test this anchor by rubbing your middle knuckle later and see if the picture comes back. To me this would be giving the middle finger to the the depressed thought. Do whatever you want to bring the emotion back. Just know that we have to connect emotions to our good thoughts/ideas in order for them to start getting firmly implanted into our brain!