Never Complain, Never Explain
"Don't allow yourself to be heard any longer griping about public life, not even with your own ears!"
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.9
Another interesting meditation today and the same message should most definitely apply to trading too!
We wait to see what the market throws at us and like I've said on numerous occasions, when writing these daily journals, we must be ready and prepared to expect the unexpected!
This means we are not ready to complain, but we are ready to react to what we are seeing, to avoid ending up in a situation where we may feel the need to complain! Not that complaining would do us any good of course. In fact as it says in today's meditation, it can put us in a negative state of mind and this can affect the next trade and so on!
It is so easy to complain when things don't go our way during a trade, but if we deal with those moments, swiftly and effectively, without hesitation, they will become the bedrock for our long term growth.
This is because we have cut short a potentially damaging loss at our pre-agreed exit point, or even earlier in some cases, to protect our trading bank; ready to fight the next battle.
A football game had an early goal, when I was looking to take a profit from a goalless, first few minutes. I took my pre-agreed controlled loss and moved on to my next opportunity that met the rules/criteria for my strategy.
A horse that I had layed, with the plan to get fully matched at my exit point, early on in the race, flew out of the stalls to challenge for the lead. I took my pre-agreed controlled loss, before that loss became unmanageable.
So instead of complaining and trying to explain, by using excuses and justifications for what I have done, when things have gone wrong; I stick to my trading rules and deal with each and every trade in that moment, when I have to.
This means that there are no grey areas when I am trading. I know exactly what to do, should I need to and these trades that are going against me on occasion, are in the minority, meaning that the profitable trades far outweigh the occasional controlled loss, ensuring long term profitability, as long as I stick to the plan 100% of the time.
As the title of today's meditation states; "Never complain, never explain"