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

ADDING UP THE CHOICES

During our day, we are confronted with choices. For example:

• Should we get up now and do that early morning run or get 20 more minutes of sleep?
• Should we grab that donut for breakfast or sit down for a healthy meal?
• Should we pay that old bill or take the money and go out for an expensive dinner with friends?
• Should we watch our favorite television show or spend the time helping our son with his math homework?

The list goes on and on and on. We are making choices when we are not aware of making them, and we are making choices when we choose to do nothing.

You can think of your life as a series of savings accounts. Each time you make a choice, you are putting capital in one of your accounts. One account is for your future, and one is for your health, and one is for your family, and one is for your career, and one is for your education. On the other hand, you can also have accounts that have increasing balances for your ill-health, or an account for your poverty, or one for your increasing waistline, or one for your deteriorating property value, or one for your future loneliness, or one for your future unemployment, or one for your addictions.

Over time, these accounts add up. Each deposit you make in an account creates momentum in that direction. The bigger the account, the more weight it has to pull you in a particular direction. As your education account increases, it has more and more force to pull you in the direction of success in life, because educated ...