• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Podcast
  • LWM Blog
  • Tim’s Top Links
  • Meet Tim
  • Contact Us

Living With Money

Helping You Make Better Choices With Your Money

  • Home
  • Podcast
  • LWM Blog
  • Tim’s Top Links
  • Meet Tim
  • Contact Us
You are here: Home / LWM Blog / The Ghost of Your Financial Past

The Ghost of Your Financial Past

February 7, 2020 by Tim Mullooly

Share this post!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

In a perfect world, we would take our financial mistakes in the past, learn from them, and be better off in the future.  Nice and simple.

As you’re aware, we don’t live in a perfect world.

Far too often we see people in our office who are scarred by their financial mistakes.  One or two mistakes can change the way folks view their money and make decisions moving forward in the future.  Sometimes that works out for them, but often it holds them back from making the most of their money.

As I’m sure other advisors can attest to, we’ve had plenty of people come in who had far too much money in risky, complicated investments during 2007-2008 and ended up losing a lot of money.  While that was a mistake, and that bear market was very painful and unfortunate, having too much money in the market wasn’t their biggest mistake.

The biggest mistake for a lot of people was letting those events in the past scar them and hold them back from getting back into the market.  There are STILL people to this day who have never re-invested their money even 12 years, and one VERY long bull market, later.

The book I’m currently reading about Adlerian psychology says how too often we focus on conversations that sound like “poor me” or “that bad person” focusing on the mistakes we’ve made in the past in search of sympathy for what happened.  Instead of having those conversations, we should be focusing on asking ourselves the question “what should I do from now on?”

The book also makes the case the the past does not really exist except in our mind.  It’s a story our present self tells to justify everything we’ve done (good and bad) to get us to this point.  While I’m not 100% sure I fully subscribe to that, I think there is a valuable lesson in there.

We may not be able to change the past, but we can certainly change our reaction to it, and we can change what the lessons we learn from it are.

The only things we can control are the decisions that we have to make moving FORWARD.  We can’t let our mistakes in the past influence more bad decisions in the future.

The same can be said for constantly viewing our successful decisions through rose-colored glasses.  Especially in the markets, more things than we like to admit are left up to chance – not skill.  Just because chance happened to work out for us in the past doesn’t mean it will always work out for us in the future.

At the end of the day, we can’t let our financial mistakes give us permanent scars that hold us back forever, and we can’t let our financial successes trick us into overconfidence.

While this can all be filed under the “easier said than done” category.  It’s something to work on and keep in mind moving forward.

Share this post!

  • Share
  • Tweet
  • LinkedIn
  • Email

Filed Under: LWM Blog

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Tim’s Top Links – 11/7/24
  • Tim’s Top Links – 11/4/24
  • Tim’s Top Links – 7/15/24
  • Tim’s Top Links – 7/10/24
  • Tim’s Top Links – 4/17/24

Don't Miss A Post!

Never miss a post...and we deliver!

Get our updates delivered right to your inbox. Sign up today!

Success! Now go and check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by Kit

Archives

  • November 2024 (2)
  • July 2024 (2)
  • April 2024 (3)
  • March 2024 (3)
  • February 2024 (6)
  • January 2024 (8)
  • December 2023 (3)
  • November 2023 (5)
  • October 2023 (5)
  • September 2023 (7)
  • August 2023 (3)
  • July 2023 (6)
  • June 2023 (8)
  • May 2023 (8)
  • April 2023 (12)
  • March 2023 (16)
  • February 2023 (13)
  • January 2023 (15)
  • December 2022 (15)
  • November 2022 (15)
  • October 2022 (14)
  • September 2022 (12)
  • August 2022 (19)
  • July 2022 (17)
  • June 2022 (16)
  • May 2022 (14)
  • April 2022 (19)
  • March 2022 (12)
  • February 2022 (10)
  • January 2022 (14)
  • December 2021 (22)
  • November 2021 (6)
  • October 2021 (7)
  • September 2021 (18)
  • August 2021 (13)
  • July 2021 (8)
  • June 2021 (9)
  • May 2021 (20)
  • April 2021 (20)
  • March 2021 (21)
  • February 2021 (17)
  • January 2021 (19)
  • December 2020 (16)
  • November 2020 (20)
  • October 2020 (19)
  • September 2020 (20)
  • August 2020 (16)
  • July 2020 (22)
  • June 2020 (23)
  • May 2020 (21)
  • April 2020 (22)
  • March 2020 (27)
  • February 2020 (23)
  • January 2020 (25)
  • December 2019 (26)
  • November 2019 (21)
  • October 2019 (29)
  • September 2019 (21)
  • August 2019 (27)
  • July 2019 (25)
  • June 2019 (22)
  • May 2019 (23)
  • April 2019 (26)
  • March 2019 (26)
  • February 2019 (7)
  • January 2019 (5)
  • December 2018 (4)
  • November 2018 (5)
  • October 2018 (4)
  • September 2018 (4)
  • August 2018 (6)
  • July 2018 (4)
  • June 2018 (4)
  • May 2018 (5)
  • April 2018 (4)
  • March 2018 (5)
  • February 2018 (4)
  • January 2018 (4)

Recent Posts

  • Tim’s Top Links – 11/7/24
  • Tim’s Top Links – 11/4/24
  • Tim’s Top Links – 7/15/24
  • Tim’s Top Links – 7/10/24
  • Tim’s Top Links – 4/17/24

Archives

  • November 2024
  • July 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018

Archives

  • November 2024
  • July 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018

Copyright © 2025 · Lifestyle Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in