If You Want To Be Steady
"The essence of good is a certain kind of reasoned choice; just as the essence of evil is another kind. What about externals, then? They are only the raw material for our reasoned choice, which finds its own good or evil in working with them. How will it find the good? Not by marveling at the material! For if judgments about the material are straight that makes our choices good, but if those judgments are twisted, our choices turn bad."
— Epictetus, Discourses
So here we learn that the Stoics seek steadiness, stability and tranquillity. So how do we embody this in our journey towards our trading goal?
Well to start with we are on a steady path by solely sticking to potential trades that fully meet our criteria 100% of the time. This means that we are consistently steady and stable with our trading (no pun intended!). By being in the habit of doing this on a regular basis, we are not desperate to trade most horse races and/or football matches. Far from it, because there will be many many races/matches that don't fully meet our criteria, compared to the ones that do. This means that we are taking regular breaks from screen time and staying refreshed and focused, for when opportunities appear and we can take full advantage when they do. I like to call it waiting to pounce!
We are in a peaceful, tranquil mindset because we are relaxed and waiting for a trade to come to us and when it does, we pounce. This doesn't come easy at first and as new traders we are desperate to get involved in lots of trades and make some profit and fast! This is our downfall of course. In time, we learn that "less is more." Patience and keeping disciplined with the correct mindset, are the lessons we need to learn as new traders and this can take some time. But with hard work, dedication and totally sticking to the plan/rules/strategy/criteria, we can make a proper judgement on this basis and also be disciplined enough to cut a trade short in a heartbeat, if it isn't going as we expected.
So to recap, we are steady, stable and tranquil with a peaceful mind, which enables us to make a proper judgement in our trading.