Don't Trust The Senses
"Heraclitus called self-deception an awful disease and eyesight a lying sense."
— Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers
Today's meditation is something that we can definitely compare to trading. As traders we need to be self-aware so we can avoid acting on impulse, instinct and assumption. We will have the stats/data available to us to evaluate a trade that fully meets our rules/criteria for our strategies. This of course, helps us form an opinion on what will happen in a trade and gives us our edge, but we must never assume that this will happen and we must have a non emotional and neutral opinion, as soon as our trade goes live. We can then react accordingly and swiftly to manage the red, if it isn't going as expected. If it does go to plan we take our targeted green and move on. We can't afford to trust our senses and rely on a trade to turn back in our favour after it goes against us, just because we have got a sense or a feeling of optimism that it will! If we do that we will end up with an unmanageable red and place a huge dent in our trading bank, which we must protect at all times.
I've said this many times over the last couple of months; "Trade and react to what you are seeing and NOT what you want/expect to happen!"
Instead of trusting your senses, trust your ability to manage your risk, by reacting in a heartbeat to a trade going against you.
With patience, discipline and lots and lots of practicing, rinse and repeat day in and day out; you can do this, I promise you!