Say on your visit to a hospital you are going to get an injection and if your expectation is that it will feel something nice, what happens when the needle is actually poked into your skin? On the other hand say you are terrified of needles and get all stressed and fearful about the impending injection, what would happen. Now say you know it will feel like a prick and will be done and over with within a short second, how would you handle the event? That is the power of having the right expectations. It makes even difficult time and things also feel happy and just right.
Expectations & decisions
No matter what you do, your expectations will always play a very major role in the decisions you take and the impact it has on your life, family, career, just about everything. For me the biggest help I received from fine tuning my expectations was in handling my investments. It doesn't matter how much you know, how much you research and which complex algorithm you use to analyze the market, if your expectations are not right, you will most probably end up taking all the wrong decisions even with the most sophisticated tools at your disposal.
What are the common expectations of an investor?
All investments should earn profits.
All investments should go up all the time.
All investments should grow fast.
Everytime we look at our portfolio we should have become richer.
Identifying expectation issues:
Obviously these are ridiculous expectations, but believe it or not when we keep refreshing our investment portfolio 20 times a day during the market hours, inherently these are our expectations and that is why we feel happy when we see a green uptick (expectations met! :) ) or sad when we see a red down tick (expectations not met :( ) This is a clear signal that we do not have the right expectations from our investments and it is affecting us emotionally. We all know theoretically about long term investments, patient investing, investing discipline, etc etc but unknowingly we do not practice the same. Somewhere in our heart we have ridiculous expectations from our investments. These are not harmful in individual instances except for the emotional stress but these do accumulate in our heads over a period of time and sometimes we end up taking disastrous decisions due to accumulated emotional stress from unfulfilled expectations over a period of time.
You must have heard and read several times on how we should control our emotions when dealing with financial decisions but no one tells you what is the root cause behind it. Well root cause of emotional stress is perceived failure in achieving a goal due misplaced expectations both in time and quantum. Once we understand this and set our expectations right, it can take away lot of unnecessary stress from our life which in turn can help us take correct and sensible decisions. Even better it can help us totally avoid disastrous decisions. This will ultimately lead to success in achieving realistic goals which will lead to peace and happiness.
Applicable everywhere
Didn't I tell you market lessons are for life and not just for making money ! I guess lessons like this will be more applicable to family & relationships which are primarily based on expectations. So fine tune your expectations till you get it right and enjoy a happy life :)
Expectations & decisions
No matter what you do, your expectations will always play a very major role in the decisions you take and the impact it has on your life, family, career, just about everything. For me the biggest help I received from fine tuning my expectations was in handling my investments. It doesn't matter how much you know, how much you research and which complex algorithm you use to analyze the market, if your expectations are not right, you will most probably end up taking all the wrong decisions even with the most sophisticated tools at your disposal.
What are the common expectations of an investor?
All investments should earn profits.
All investments should go up all the time.
All investments should grow fast.
Everytime we look at our portfolio we should have become richer.
Identifying expectation issues:
Obviously these are ridiculous expectations, but believe it or not when we keep refreshing our investment portfolio 20 times a day during the market hours, inherently these are our expectations and that is why we feel happy when we see a green uptick (expectations met! :) ) or sad when we see a red down tick (expectations not met :( ) This is a clear signal that we do not have the right expectations from our investments and it is affecting us emotionally. We all know theoretically about long term investments, patient investing, investing discipline, etc etc but unknowingly we do not practice the same. Somewhere in our heart we have ridiculous expectations from our investments. These are not harmful in individual instances except for the emotional stress but these do accumulate in our heads over a period of time and sometimes we end up taking disastrous decisions due to accumulated emotional stress from unfulfilled expectations over a period of time.
You must have heard and read several times on how we should control our emotions when dealing with financial decisions but no one tells you what is the root cause behind it. Well root cause of emotional stress is perceived failure in achieving a goal due misplaced expectations both in time and quantum. Once we understand this and set our expectations right, it can take away lot of unnecessary stress from our life which in turn can help us take correct and sensible decisions. Even better it can help us totally avoid disastrous decisions. This will ultimately lead to success in achieving realistic goals which will lead to peace and happiness.
Applicable everywhere
Didn't I tell you market lessons are for life and not just for making money ! I guess lessons like this will be more applicable to family & relationships which are primarily based on expectations. So fine tune your expectations till you get it right and enjoy a happy life :)
