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relate to your investing behavior as well as other areas of your life. The person striving for excellence is:
Able to accept less than a perfect trading performance without feeling inadequate.
Able to not only feel acceptance but, in addition, derive personal satisfaction and pride from a good enough performance.
Motivated by the joy of achievement and the challenge of reaching an investing goal rather than driven by the fear of failure and disapproval from others.
Able to appreciate and enjoy successive steps achieved toward the investing goals as significant in themselves rather than stay focused only on the end goal of a specific return.
Able to remember and utilize previous accomplishments to build a reservoir of self-confidence and self-esteem as support when taking on new challenges.
Able to not only accept but feel sympathetic joy for the accomplishments of others without feeling envious or diminished by the others' success. Sympathetic joy is the feeling of sharing the other's accomplishment based on the ability to identify with the other in a positive, caring way, beyond the cut-throat, trader-against-trader mentality.
Able to transcend exclusively making their identity, self-esteem, and self-worth dependent on personal performance and accomplishments.
Able to take on tasks, play sports, games, and amusements for their entertainment value, doing their best, but without turning them into a competition with others.
Able to lose gracefully and be a good sport without needing a rematch or walking away feeling that their self-worth has been diminished.
Able to overcome depression and feelings of anxiety, hostility, anger, and resentment when they don't come out ahead.
Able to enjoy their accomplishments without having to boast or put others down.
Able to demonstrate a sense of modesty and humility, a sense of perspective on their own accomplishments. For traders, this means realizing they can do well one day, one week, or one month but their fortune may change very fast,

 
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