Here are a few reasons why many investors fail at investing:
1) They believe present conditions will persist indefinitely into the future. This year was particularly bleak, so many investors falsely assume that 2021 will bring more of the same doom and gloom. The reality is that we're in the backend of this pandemic and once vaccines are widely distributed globally the economic conditions will improve. Retail and office reits will recover. REI will be at $24+ by this time next year.
2) Many investors have recency bias. They quickly forget past stock market meltdowns like in 2008 and believe the current downturn is the worst in history. Newsflash, it's not. This is only a crisis because of global political policies i.e. lockdowns that directly result in economic destruction. In 2008 the global financial system almost collapsed, so is Covid really worse than that? I don't think so.
3) Investors don't pay attention to history. All global pandemics in the past century have only lasted for 2 years. The great Spanish flu of 1918, and the Hong Flu of 1968. The Spanish Flu killed 50 million people worldwide, and the Hong Kong flu killed about 4 million people. Covid-19 is nowhere near comparable to the 1918 Spanish Flu, it's more akin to the 1968 Hong Kong Flu. Anyways, history tells us that Covid-19 will be done in 2021 and not last indefinitely, so invest accordingly.