Stay Focused On The Present
"Don't let your reflection on the whole sweep of life crush you. Don't fill your mind with all the bad things that might still happen. Stay focused on the present situation and ask yourself why it's so unbearable and can't be survived."
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Today's meditation encourages us to "stay focused on the present" and this is also very relevant for us as traders too.
The trades from yesterday and the day before and the day before that etc. are all history. All those trades have been executed and managed to completion. Also we are not focused on the trades that we will make in a few days time or even tomorrow! We are focused on our current trading for today and nothing else!
We will wait patiently for any opportunities that fully meet the rules/criteria for our strategies and we will be totally concentrated and "in the zone" to ensure that we execute and fully manage those trades to completion, by making the right decisions; sometimes in a heartbeat and without hesitation.
All we are interested in is "the here and now" and we focus on one trade at a time. The next trade, followed by the next trade, followed by the next trade. There may be a period of time between trades as we wait for the next trade that fully meets the rules/criteria for our strategies; or the next trade may come along quickly. This doesn't matter of course as we just concentrate on one trade at a time, as and when they appear.
We can reflect on our trades from previous days that we have traded and analyse how those trades worked out and we should be doing this anyway, at the end of each trading day. This helps us become better and better and much more consistent in our trading.
However, as soon as we start our trading session for the day we just need to concentrate on the job in hand and "stay focused on the present" and avoid any needless distractions.
These actions eventually will become habit when we do the same thing, every day that we trade and this can only benefit us, over the course of our trading journey.