Just Don't Make Things Worse
"How much more harmful are the consequences of anger and grief than the circumstances that aroused them in us!"
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Another meditation today which also compares/relates to trading!
"If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging" it says and how very true.
If we make a mistake when trading and we fail to exit for our targeted controlled red and it becomes unmanageable, we will have a tendency to want to right that wrong as soon as we can; that is our first mistake of course. We cannot afford to get angry or feel aggrieved and we certainly cannot let it affect our trading! If we do we will revenge trade, trying to get our loss back asap and that is a recipe for disaster! What has happened, has happened and getting angry and feeling aggrieved, is only going to fuel our desire to revenge trade by taking risks and breaking our rules, because due to our state of mind, we have gone full tilt!
So if you make a mistake and lose more than you planned STOP walk away from the screen; take a walk, calm down and refresh before you potentially do even more damage than you already have done! Take the rest of the day off if you have to, but don't go back to another trade until you are totally back in control of your actions and you are 100% ready to follow the rules/criteria for your strategies, to the letter!
When we trade, we must be "in the zone" and in total control of what we are doing.
We will make occasional mistakes as traders; we are only human after all! How we deal with our emotions when things go wrong will have a massive impact on our trading and we certainly can't afford to do irreparable damage to our trading bank!
Over time we will make back what we have lost and more, as long as we remain patient and disciplined, by not trying to make it all back immediately and making the wrong choices! Stick to the plan; "Just don't make things worse."