Trading on Target: How to Cultivate a Winner's State of Mind

THE NEED TO DEFEND

There was a very good reason why Sid always found reasons for what he did. He had been raised in a very critical home environment. Regardless of what he did as a child, his mother and father always found something wrong with it. Sid was a very bright and competent child. Instead of praising him for his accomplishments, his parents found something in his achievements to criticize.

Sid awoke each morning with a sense of impending doom. What would his parents find wrong with him today? No matter what he tried, he could not make it through the day having pleased them. Even as an adult, his parents could not stop their criticism. When visiting them, he would often change his entire outfit two or three times until he was absolutely certain it would not generate criticism. However, he was always wrong about that, too.

Sid’s only path to survival in an environment like this was to learn self-defense. He quite naturally fell into a pattern of defending himself that followed him throughout his life. The minute he perceived that he was under attack, he immediately began to formulate a defense strategy. The fact that these “attacks” were constructive or even necessary advice did not register with Sid’s unconscious mind, which was hypersensitive to the faintest whiff of an attack.

Most people do not grow up in homes as critical as Sid’s. However, many people come from homes with varying levels of criticism and judgment. If it does not come from their homes, it very often ...