I used to subconsciously use the best possible outcome as a standard to judge my performance, but my life changed for the good once I realised that it was a recipe for disaster.
There are many things you learn as you stumble along the path called “life”, and I’m glad I learned this sooner rather than later. So listen carefully.
If you are always disappointed at not achieving what’s possible (even if it’s not likely), you are bound to be unhappy.
Let’s illustrate this point using an example. Let’s say you are in a race with eleven people in the upcoming event. You train hard, and you feel like you are at the top of your game. The day comes, you run the best time of your life, but you still come in third. You are disappointed aren’t you? But you trained the hardest you could (given the time that you had) and you performed the best of your abilities (you ran the best time of your life). If you still came in third, was there really a chance that you could’ve won?
If you really want to be happy, know that there’s ALWAYS someone out there that’s better. Instead of trying to be the best, just strive to be the best that you can be. Give yourself the best chance to win, and enjoy the process instead of the result because the outcome is sometimes uncontrollable.
You must have heard before that buying index funds is the way to invest because it’s impossible to consistently beat the averages by picking individual stocks. I, on the other hand, disagree completely. Having done it since I started investing, I know it’s definitely possible to consistently beat the index funds. Yet, I am starting to move all my funds to index funds. Why? Because I am happy with being the average.
READ ALSO: As recession bites, Nigerians hold 2021 budget to critical scrutiny
Doesn’t it sound crazy to opt for index funds when I can make more money picking individual stocks? But it all makes sense if you consider that picking stocks take time (actually a lot of time). With this added cost, it no long made sense for me to be stressed about it, when in fact the historical average was good enough.
From the outside looking in, my friends might have been jealous of me when they found out that I was beating the index funds, but little did they know that it took many sleepless nights and lots of time to achieve my results.
Going back to the race: Who knows what the other two people ahead of you went through in order to run that fast? Maybe, all they did since childhood was to train for these types of races. There’s even a chance that they cheated by taking illegal substances and never got caught. There is no way you can control what the competition does, so how can you base your emotions on what relates to them?
Work on what you can control:
• Your work ethic
•Your attitude
•The journey
• and put less emphasis on:
• Luck
• What others are doing
•The result
Sometimes, “mind your own business” is actually the best advice. It’s much easier to be happy that way.
