What Are Your Excuses?

In the past I have made the suggestion that if you've been working on the Peak Performance Course and reading Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom, you probably have many ideas for how to improve your trading. There is probably no good reason not to spend a month (or six months) developing a good business plan and implementing many of these ideas. So what is stopping you

I suggested that you take some time and write down your excuses.

What did some of those excuses and justifications look like?

Perhaps like these:

• I just didn't have the time.
• If I do it, I'll probably miss something and just lose more money.
• This material isn't for me. When I bought it, I thought it was something simple that I could just use to transform myself. I didn't think there would be so much work involved.
• Dr. Tharp really doesn't understand me. If he did, this material would be easier.
• My life is going fine. I don't have any problems and I just don't need to deal with all of this stuff.
• I have too many distractions and I cannot focus.
• I'm right and Dr. Tharp just doesn't get it.
• I need to really study this stuff and I just can't seem to find the time.
• It would be much easier if my spouse understood this and how important it is.

When you make excuses of this nature, it is simply so that you can be right. You are basically saying that you like these beliefs because they are right. It doesn't make you happy. It doesn't make you successful. However, you do get to be right and if that is what's important to you, then so be it.

There is a better strategy by which to evaluate your beliefs: is it useful? Is it getting me what I want? Is it working? One of the basic presuppositions of NLP is that if something doesn't work, do something else. Almost anything else will get you different results.

If your trading isn't working, change what you are doing. If your trading system isn't working, change how you approach the system (your exits and your position sizing). If your life isn't working, then change how you approach your life. Ask yourself - whatever it is you are facing - "Is it working or is it not working?"

Life is a process. There is no success or failure - only feedback. You've been getting feedback about what you've been doing for a long time. Are you willing to change now? It's never too late. You're never too old. Today is always the first day of the rest of your life. So begin now.

Just imagine that you are responsible for everything that has happened to you up to now in your life. That's part of respond-ability that I've talked about so many times. And when you finally decide that you are responsible for your own life - for what has happened in the past - you will find that you get an immense rush of freedom. You can decide right now what you want, and you are in charge of making it happen.