The second key to success is the ability to forget, or have a short memory. I don't mean this literally as in not being able to remember where you put the car keys when you got home, rather I mean the ability not to dwell on past negatives.  It is often said that past actions help to predict future results.  I'm not saying that this is a false statement, after all my business is ran on this notion. However, we often forget the how part.  A bad decision in the past often doesn't mean a bad decision in the future. As humans we are blessed with the gift of choice, and the ability to decide how we handle each situation we face.  On the negative side, we are also creatures of habit.  This means that each of us is in control of our future and when a similar fork in the road arrives we can either  give in to our habits and chose the same route we did in the past, or we can chose an entirely new path.

If you read the first post in this series then you'll remember me sharing a story about a photographer that was very disappointed with how his shots came out. You'll also remember me saying that he went right back out and started shooting again. This person did not dwell on his past failures. He looked at them, made adjustments and then let them go.  The same thing goes for a quarterback in the NFL when he throws an interception. He has two choices. A) he can moan and pout about the decision he made, which will give him the fear of throwing another one the next time a pass play is called. Or B) he can look at the pictures, find out what he did wrong, then go out and continue to attack the defense without giving his past interception a second thought.  Me personally,  I had a great month of trading in May but ran into a cold streak the first week of June where I nearly gave back everything I earned the previous month.  For a good eight days it seemed that the only thing I could do was lose money.  At one point I was contemplating writing a book about how I trade and telling the readers that the key to being successful and making money is to do the exact opposite of what you read in this book. lol But seriously  I won't even lie to you guys, I was feeling hurt, frustrated, borderline depressed, you name it.  But I knew that I couldn't dwell on the past and I had to keep pulling the trigger. Needless to say it worked out in my favor and I'm back on the right path.  Rewind time eight months ago when the same situation happened, I was so scared to enter any trade that I ended up watching from the sidelines as the markets went in my favor, leaving more than double of what I lost on the table.

My friend D.R. who is a writer for this site posted a great quote of Facebook the other day.  It read "I don't chase my dreams, I run them down."   I immediately commented saying that I loved his wording because even though to chase and to run down are basically the same thing, to run down is a much more aggressive term.  When I hear chase, I begin to think of the word hope. If you're chasing a dream you're telling yourself that you hope you'll get it one day.  When you hope for something your brain is doing a lot of work trying to rationalize if or how you will accomplish such task.  And when your brain wants to pull reasoning, it often pulls it from past experiences.  Therefore if you accomplished a task in the past you will have more confidence in the future, and if you failed at a task in the past you will have more doubt.  To run down something (to me at least) takes the hope factor out of the equation and tells your brain that this is what I'm doing deal with it. This takes the thought process out of it and we all know that the less you think the less it slows you down. Similar to the expression go with your gut.

I hope at least a little bit of this mumble jumble made sense to you guys and feel free to leave a comment if you have anything to add. Visit the site tomorrow for a brand new quote of the day as always and Part 3 of this series. Thank you. Much Love!




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