Philosophy As Medicine Of The Soul
"Don't return to philosophy as a task-master, but as patients seek out relief in a treatment of sore eyes, or a dressing for a burn, or from an ointment. Regarding it this way, you'll obey reason without putting it on display and rest easy in its care."
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Today's meditation is an interesting one and when we relate this to trading, what immediately springs to mind for me, is the fact that as we get into that rhythm and we make some money and things appear to be going really well, there is a great danger of becoming complacent. All of a sudden we think this is easy and maybe we start neglecting one or two areas of our strategies, or we don't cut our losses short because we think the trade will turn back our way and before we know it we have allowed ourselves to end up with a much bigger red than when we execute our plan correctly. We basically lose the discipline.
When this happens it's time to "tap the brakes" and take a step back and re-evaluate where we are going wrong. We need to return to basics and follow our strategy fully again, with clarity, good judgement and sticking to our full criteria 100%. Maybe take a break for a couple of days to think about this and to then get back on track, when we are fully focused and fresh again.
It is extremely important that we look after ourselves mentally, so we need to have the correct mindset. As we progress on our trading journey, we must make sure that we evaluate our trades and ask ourselves, did we follow the plan? Did we take risks that we got away with and maybe won't next time? Were we lucky on occasion? How could we do better with some of these trades? If we can evaluate our trades on a daily basis, we will give ourselves a much better chance of staying grounded and sticking fully to what we know works for us. Keeping on top of our trading is vital so we don't slip into complacency.
This is our "philosophy as medicine of the soul."