Calm Is Contagious
"If then it's not that the things you pursue or avoid are coming at you, but rather that you in a sense are seeking them out, at least try to keep your judgment of them steady, and they too will remain calm and you won't be seen chasing after or fleeing from them."
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
The same can be said for trading when we look at today's meditation.
If we can stay calm, focused and "in the zone" while we are trading, we are far less likely to make a stupid mistake. In fact we are much more likely to do the right thing and cut short any trades that are going against us, at our cut off point.
We know exactly what we must do and we must follow our rules 100% of the time. We know that due to the stats/data that we have available to us, we will be right many more times than we are wrong. This means that we can take our targeted profits on a regular basis. However, on the odd occasion when a trade is going against us, we must act swiftly and decisively to control the loss, so we don't undo all that hard work, by ending up with a much bigger unmanaged loss and eating into our profits! By controlling our losses we are ensuring profitability over the long term, as the regular profits will far outweigh the occasional controlled loss.
So we must stay calm and stick to the plan, with the patience and discipline required, to enable us to trade without fear. Otherwise chaos will ensue and we will lose control. It is vital that we stay in control of every trade that we enter and manage them fully, to completion.