Don't Get Mad. Help
"Are you angry when someone's armpits stink or when their breath is bad? What would be the point? Having such a mouth and such armpits, there's going to be a smell emanating. You say, they must have sense, can't they tell how they are offending others? Well, you have sense too, congratulations! So, use your natural reason to awaken theirs, show them, call it out. If the person will listen, you will have cured them without useless anger. No drama nor unseemly show required."
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.28
Trying to help people instead of getting mad, can be difficult at times; especially if you are dealing with the same issue over and over again! After all, you can take a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, as the saying goes!
If we look at this from a trading perspective, my first thought would be to add one word to the title of today's meditation; "Don't get mad. Help yourself." To become a good trader, you must first and foremost help yourself. It is not enough to just know what you need to do, when you execute and manage a trade. You need to be able to actually react to what you are seeing and act without hesitation, in a lot of scenarios!
Regular repetitive practice, day in and day out, rinse and repeat, is the only way to become so familiar with your trades, that you know exactly what to do, when required. The more you practice doing this of course, you will become consistent in your decision making. This in turn, will breed confidence of knowing that you can make the right choices to protect your trading bank and become profitable.
Don't get me wrong; it isn't easy and it might take you a while to be able to pull the trigger and bail, when things are starting to go wrong during a trade; you will however improve with practice.
Hopefully you will get to the stage where not only do you know what to do and when to do it; but you will actually help yourself and pull the trigger before the trade becomes unmanageable and a threat to your trading bank.
I touched on the dangers of revenge trading in yesterday's daily journal and if you can avoid getting mad, you will also avoid revenge trading too, as they actually go hand in hand by triggering each other; you get mad from losing significantly more than you had planned, from the worst case scenario and this triggers revenge trading and trying to get back that significant loss as soon as you possibly can!
Remember, you are in control of every trade that you enter; It's down to you and you alone, to manage your trades.
With patience, discipline and time to practice regularly, you can do it. You've got this, if you put your mind to it and help yourself along the way!