Cultivating Indifference Where Others Grow Passion
"Of all the things that are, some are good, others bad, and yet others indifferent. The good are virtues and all that share in them; the bad are the vices and all that indulge them; the indifferent lie in between virtue and vice and include wealth, health, life, death, pleasure, and pain."
— Epictetus, Discourses
Interesting reading again with today's meditation, when we translate it to trading. We want to separate ourselves from the crowd when we trade and become part of that minority, that can be consistently profitable over time. We don't want to be upset, envious, excited, possessive, or greedy; we need to be objective, calm and clearheaded. We have a clear objective to stick to the rules/criteria for our strategies and we execute our trades calmly and with a purpose, following our plan to the letter. Doing this day in day out, rinse and repeat so that we know our strategies inside out, means we are clearheaded and confident in what we are achieving.
We must learn to enjoy our trading journey with patience and not crave for more and more. If we do everything to plan consistently, with well thought out strategies and swiftly cut short any losing trades as and when they arise, we will be relaxed and not constantly in fear every time we enter a trade. Fear of losing money can have a big impact on your trading and panic can set in; especially if you have no clue what to do if a trade is going against you! We know we can exit a potentially losing trade in a heartbeat for a controlled smaller loss, so as long as we stay calm and stick to the plan that we have practiced and practiced, we know we will be profitable long term.
The more confidence we have in our ability to manage and execute our trades correctly, the better we will become; guaranteed! We know we can't control the outcome of a football match or a horse race etc. but we can control how we manage our trades by sticking to our rules 100% of the time.
This is not easy to do at first and it takes lots and lots of practice, patience and discipline; but if you can manage your trades as per your trading plan, you will be much more relaxed and confident as you develop on your trading journey.
So instead of being fearful, upset, greedy, revengeful and ending up on a disaster course to full tilt and a blown trading bank; we cultivate the calm and clearheaded correct mindset to trade consistently and confidently.
Make this your challenge every day that you trade.