FREE NEWSLETTER
ONE OF THE KEY skills I quickly learned as a new parent: how to curb some of my emotions. Take last night. We were enjoying our normal bedtime routine, including bath time, bottles and a few favorite books.
Then I was vomited all over.
Being vomited on was just another evening with our 16-month-old twins. If you dial up or down your emotions too much in response, they have you. Dial them a bit too high, and soon you’re down an internet search vortex that has you fretting over all sorts of obscure diseases. Keep your dial too low and you aren’t paying enough attention. So how do you become a Goldilocks in this scenario—not too hot, not too cold, but just right?
Trevor Moawad, a renowned mental conditioning expert and advisor to sports stars, preaches the power of neutral thinking. In other words, focus on the facts. Here are ours:
What dials are you turning up too high? Which are you ignoring? For those who immediately thought about their investment portfolio, how can you take some of the emotion—the dials—out of it? How can you turn a wild financial year like 2020 into facts? Consider the following, all of which are reasons for optimism:
I can cite these facts, and yet you may still feel like you’ve been vomited on—that last year still stank. Partly, it’s because some terrible things did indeed happen. But partly, it’s because of negativity bias—the tendency to respond more powerfully to negative events and experiences than positives ones. We forget some of the good, allowing the bad to leave more of a mark. This is typical of human behavior. We are beautifully irrational. It’s much easier to dial up or down our emotions than to neutralize our thinking.
Moawad’s approach to neutral thinking is simple: Focus on what you say out loud, what you consume and what habits you form. Last year was overwhelming and exhausting for most people. For many families, it brought tragedy. But there are still reasons for optimism.
If you are reading this, you’re still here. To be vomited on, you have to be present. I was present for that, plus a whole lot of the twins’ firsts. For our family, 2020 brought many ups and downs, but staying neutral helped us get through it. It may help yours in the months ahead, as we struggle to escape the pandemic, and its ongoing impact on our communities and our economy. My advice: Keep a tight grip on the facts—and on those pesky dials.
Anika Hedstrom, MBA, CFP, is a personal finance expert and advisor. She writes on motivational and behavioral aspects of financial planning, and has been featured in USA Today, MarketWatch, Huffington Post, Business Insider and NPR. Always up for adventure, Anika can be found exploring new countries, whitewater rafting and chasing after her twins. Follow her on Twitter @AnikaHedstrom and check out her earlier articles.
Want to receive our weekly newsletter? Sign up now. How about our daily alert about the site's latest posts? Join the list.
Nice article. Have a good / neutral emotional temperament is helpful to both life in general and in investing.
Thank you. I’m glad it resonated with you.
The most amazing, heroic, loving and pain tolerant human beings ever created are mothers. I’m in awe of you and my wife (of 5). Thank you. And you couldn’t be more right! It isn’t about what in front of you, it’s about what’s important to you. 🙂
Thanks Langston! I appreciate your comments. Hats off to your wife!
As the parent of now teenage twins, I can offer this “fact”. Things tend to get better, although challenges remain, they’re (usually) different than getting vomited upon! But back to the “neutral thinking”, I interpret that as approaching life, investing and otherwise, with as “even a keel” as possible. Yes, 2020 was in many ways a disaster, in my view especially for the families of the 400,000 (and still counting) who lost their lives due to the pandemic. Contrast that with a stock market that was, fact, simply on a tear, with record upon record, also undeniable facts. Now the explanations for those facts are NOT facts, but instead either simply opinions or, in a more formal analysis, hypothesis’. My cautionary takeaway is that it’s early days, and those explanations of the facts may or may not ultimately be proven to be correct. In the meantime I personally find it fair (this is true for both my kids and my investing outlook) to take a measured, yet opportunistic, approach. I’m still broadly diversified, but overweighted in healthcare and tech as they’re what I do professionally, and again, like my children, I’m planning to be “in it” for the long run. For my children, neither work or investing have compromised on spending as much time as I can with them as possible. Even when they vomit! Relish parenthood, I’ve long considered it the greatest blessing I’ll ever receive.
Thanks for your comments.
I love your take….”even a keel” as possible.
Yes, parenthood is awesome, challenges and all. Sounds like your twins are pretty lucky to have a great parent with a good, “measured, yet opportunistic, approach.”