This attitude toward struggle is not only counterproductive -- leading to self-defeating behaviors including retreating inward with self-doubt and avoiding necessary risk for fear of failure -- it is also wrong.

CNN: Why struggle at work is good for your career

By doing this, I will sometimes miss the trade altogether, but avoiding high-risk or impulsive trades can really make a difference in your bottom line.

FORBES: Avoiding Those Costly Impulsive Trades

Most mutual fund shareholders, for instance, are still avoiding any high-risk investments in their mutual fund portfolios.

FORBES: Mutual Fund Investors Are Not Betting On Risk

Although it has integrated the product into its Outlook.com web email service, it will continue to offer Skype as a separate installable application on its new system, avoiding the risk of anti-competition complaints.

BBC: Skype slashes battery use for Windows 8 system launch

Its refusal to risk any casualties on its own side by avoiding lower-level (and thus more accurate) bombing raids has led, by its own admission, to civilian casualties.

ECONOMIST: The law and the war

Therefore, at least one-third of investing risk, and probably more, can be eliminated by avoiding individual stocks altogether and simply investing in sector or market indexes via index mutual funds and ETFs.

FORBES: Swear Off Individual Stocks For Better Returns

Although the company is (arguably) priced for perfection as seen by its price-to-earnings ratio of 200, Amazon continues to remind investors with its execution and new 52-week highs that avoiding the stock at any level presents the greater risk.

FORBES: Why It May Be Time to Sell Amazon

The advantage of diversification is still achieved, and a two-to-one leveraged ETF will double the performance of the index while still avoiding the risk in the individual stocks.

FORBES: Small Cap Stocks And ETF To Milk The January Effect

In addition, you should consider avoiding plaintext-password network services: The POP3, FTP, and Telnet daemons pose a special risk because their passwords pass unencrypted across the open network, sniffable by any nearby machine along the way.

CNN: Analysis: Linux security