Life Is Long — If You Know How To Use It
"It's not at all that we have too short a time to live, but that we squander a great deal of it. Life is long enough, and it's given in sufficient measure to do many great things if we spend it well. But when it's poured down the drain of luxury and neglect, when it's employed to no good end, we're finally driven to see that it has passed by before we even recognized it passing. And so it is — we don't receive a short life, we make it so."
— Seneca, On The Brevity of Life
Today's meditation really emphasises the point that we tend to waste a lot of time on things that we shouldn't be! How many times do you hear people say; "there just aren't enough hours in the day?" It can be a phrase used by people all too often!
This is why when we concentrate on trading, we need to use our time wisely. When we have strict rules/criteria in place for our strategies, it narrows down potential trades, to a select few. This does a number of things. For a start it means we are putting ourselves under less pressure and we are benefiting from regular breaks from screen time, to take refreshments and rest our concentration levels. As I often say in these daily journals, we need to be fully focused and "in the zone" with zero distractions, when we are trading. This takes up a lot of focused concentration and effort, to be able to react, to fully manage and control any potential losses, if trades are going against us; so those regular breaks, help massively!
It also means that we are taking up the patient mantra of less is more.
Being disciplined enough to only trade what fully meets your own rules/criteria for your strategies, means that you are not chasing or forcing trades, you are not listening to the noise of others and you are most certainly not trading on impulse. All of your trades have been fully researched using the historical stats/data that you have available, meaning that there is a high probability of your trades working out as planned and you can take your pre-event targeted profit, more often than not. This will ensure that you are profitable in the long run, as long as you stick to your rules.
If you constantly practice this repetitively, over and over again, it will eventually become second nature and a great habit to adopt.
Patience and discipline are the key elements, so let the trades appear and then pounce!
You can make trading work for you--if you know how to use it!