The Beginning of The End
Hello <<First Name>>,
I don't know about you, but personally, I've had my fill of winter. My attitude isn't helped by weekend projects like chipping away at the 4 inches of ice covering my driveway. A combination of compacted snow, melting run off from my gutters and refreezing has created my own personal backyard ice rink. So our all-too-brief foray into the 50s (10°C) this past week gave me an opportunity to see the pavement of my driveway before April.
But all this outdoor activity got me to thinking of how this is effecting my decisions. Am I really concentrating on what I need to or am I thinking about other things, like anything that doesn’t involve snow, ice, cold or gray skies?
Admittedly, this winter has been more challenging than in recent memory. And short of being a victim of something like
Seasonal Affected Disorder (SAD), I started thinking about what I could do to lift my spirits out of the doldrums of what is assuredly a temporary situation. Here’s my short list:
- I’m not a huge baseball fan but I always enjoy when news reports start talking about Spring Training. It signals for me the beginning of the end of winter. I even find myself tuning in the pre-season games just to get my head into the next season.
- I joined a sailing club a few years ago and now’s the time the club’s monthly newsletter starts to talk about preparation for the coming season. Getting a sailboat in the water means the ice has melted and there is an actual harbor to anchor in. Also, wind speed is something to welcome for filling sails rather than avoid because of the drop in temperature.
- The days are definitely getting longer. I noticed this the other day stepping out of my house around 4:30pm and still seeing the sun above the horizon.
- And in that same vein, there seem to be sunnier, clearer days. Even if the temperatures are still at or below freezing, the fact that there is a sun that creates some heat is a welcome messenger that winter is almost over.
I invite you to come up with your own list of seasonal attitude adjustments. Regardless of your climate conditions, it is important to be aware of our environment especially those conditions that are out of our control. We may not control the weather, but we can control how we deal with it and what it is doing to our thoughts.
Sending you warm thoughts,
From the blog
The Empowered Trader:
Educational Posting
The Good Enough Trader explained what many traders experience, a sense of maintaining the status quo. Things are “good enough” when it comes to the trading results. Another way to look at it is a sense of breakeven, not too big either from a winner or loser point of view. This can result, for lack of a better description, in a malaise of mediocrity.
Please don’t mistake the description of “malaise of mediocrity” as a negative. It’s an imperfect way of describing what you might be feeling in your trading results. If you are generally happy with maintain status quo, then you don’t need to read any further. The malaise of mediocrity I’m speaking of is a sense discontentment regarding your trading results.
Generally, most traders that talk about a break-even result are not happy. They have envisioned some sort of result that will propel them into another type of reality, [continue here]
Thought Provoking Posting
Continuing the conversation, here are the next 5 items on my list.
6. Give up complaining. Do you find yourself complaining about your trading? What are the results of those complaints? How are you dealing with the feeling of those complaints? Awareness of those feelings leads to acknowledging those feeling which can lead to action in dealing with those feelings.
7. Give up the luxury of criticism. Criticism of trading results are often tied to point 1 which is the need to be right. Listen, we don’t have any control over a trade once it’s in the market. Sometimes we just get it wrong. That doesn’t mean that everything you’ve worked for is flawed and needs to be revamped. We were just on the other side of the market. Stop, reevaluate your position, and move forward. Make it that simple. [continue here]
Video Posting
Floored Ep. 6 - Is This Suppose To Be the Greener Side?
In this excerpt of Floored, we look at the realm of high stress electronic trading. The challenges don’t go away just because you now have a computer making the decisions for you. The attractiveness of the computer screens is often overshadowed by what appears to be the lack of control.
If you would like to have a personal conversation with Mark about your particular trading challenges, click here to schedule a 45 minute complimentary coaching session.
