Fear, euphoria, frustration, overconfidence: the 4 states that sabotage your decisions

June 6, 2026 · La Svolta Group

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It’s not the market. It’s not your boss. It’s not bad luck. Most of the time, the one sabotaging your decisions is you — while passing, unknowingly, through one of these four states.

The four faces of the saboteur

Fear dresses up as prudence: it makes you postpone, ask for one more opinion, wait for “the right moment” that never comes. From the outside it looks like wisdom; from the inside it’s a door quietly closing.

Euphoria arrives after a win: everything looks easy, risks look small, and you double down exactly when you should consolidate. It’s the state that turns a good streak into a disaster.

Frustration whispers “win it back”: a rushed choice to erase yesterday’s loss, one word too many to win today’s argument. Every move made for redemption is born wrong.

Overconfidence is the most elegant of the four: it shows up after three wins in a row and convinces you that rules no longer apply to you. That’s where the most expensive mistakes are made.

The point is not to eliminate them

These states are human: you cannot switch them off, and anyone promising otherwise is selling you a fairy tale. What you can do is learn two things: recognise them as they arrive — each has precise physical signals, always the same — and apply the right antidote, because each state has its own. What calms fear feeds euphoria; what extinguishes euphoria worsens frustration.

It’s a matter of practice, not theory. Inside the path we map your personal signals, state by state, and build tailored countermeasures — until recognising them becomes automatic.

Meanwhile, a useful question for today: which of the four has cost you the most this past year? Knowing it is already half the work.