Brick By Boring Brick
"You must build up your life action by action, and be content if each one achieves its goal as far as possible — and no one can keep you from this. But there will be some external obstacle! Perhaps, but no obstacle to acting with justice, self-control, and wisdom. But what if some other area of my action is thwarted? Well, gladly accept the obstacle for what it is and shift your attention to what is given, and another action will immediately take its place, one that better fits the life you are building."
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Today's meditation is another very interesting read and once again, it can be compared to trading.
In fact, I was actually talking in one of the TTM channels a while ago, about concentrating on "the process," rather than how much profit you can make in a month.
"The Process" talked about in today's meditation is very similar, as it mentions ignoring the bigger picture and concentrating on practising with full effort on the things that we absolutely must do well, to give ourselves a chance of succeeding. By doing this, we make the right choices and take the right course of action.
In our case as traders, this means not breaking the rules/criteria for our strategies and executing and fully managing every trade to completion. This process must be practiced and followed day in, day out, so that you know it inside out and back to front!
If we concentrate on the here and now, rather than the bigger picture, we are not getting ahead of ourselves and we are making sure we are dealing with any obstacles during our trading day by taking a small controlled and manageable red, when we have to and taking our pre-event targeted profits when a trade goes to plan.
Doing the same thing when we trade day in, day out, can make things repetitive; "brick by boring brick."
However, it also means that we will become consistent and profitable on our trading journey.
So instead of looking at the bigger picture the next time you are trading, why not turn your attention to fully focusing on getting the process right? The results will do the talking over a period of time!