The Benefits Of Sobering Thoughts
"Keep death and exile before your eyes each day, along with everything that seems terrible — by doing so, you'll never have a base thought nor will you have excessive desire."
— Epictetus, Enchiridion
I can't find anything positive at all, when reading today's meditation and I certainly can't compare anything as drastic as death, to our trading journey, that's for sure!
Yes I agree that we need to have sobering thoughts occasionally, to keep us in check; but to me this is extremely dark, heavy and grim reading!
I am more the eternal optimist. I love life and I try to enjoy every single day, as best as I can; and that includes trading too of course!
I have become addicted to testing myself on a daily basis, with the aim to get even just a little bit better, every day that I trade. Even the tiniest improvement, means that I am on the right path!
Sobering thoughts when it comes to trading, can be that unfortunately you are not going to be profitable with every trade! Wake up and smell the coffee if you think that you are; because if you think that way, you are in for a rude awakening for sure!
Trading is all about balancing the books and we will win many more trades than when we lose. The secret is, controlling those losses at a manageable level, that doesn't put your trading bank under threat. This means that we will be profitable long term, if our strategies are good enough and we have the discipline to control and manage every trade to completion, when needed.
The historical stats/data that we have available to us, means that we are able to make an informed decision, that gives us our trading edge. All this information and knowledge is useless however, if we cannot be disciplined enough to cut short any trade that is going against us, early enough, before it becomes unmanageable and can burn a big hole in our trading bank!
So please, bear in mind that you won't be successful in every trade that you enter (sobering thought here), but you will be long term profitable, if you keep on practising at doing the right things, again and again.
If you can maintain the patience and discipline to stick to the rules/criteria for your strategies and adopt the correct trading mindset, with zero distractions, you will get better and better and will be able to react quickly enough, on the odd occasions that you need to.
It's all down to you and you've got this, if you are prepared to put in the hard work required.