What is the primary cause of stress and emotional interference for you in your trading?
The past.
Every time you feel anxiety, it’s the past trades gone bad flashing through your mind
Perhaps guilt over not reaching your goals, over the mistakes you’ve made that cost you, over not getting yourself organized, over the money you’ve lost.
Perhaps it’s anger, frustration, or any of the other feelings that come up when the past works its way into this moment.
So what can you do, quickly to keep those memories from making today a good trading day?
FORGIVE.
You see, the past no longer exists except in your mind. And you can let it go.
That’s what forgiving is all about: letting go of hurt, resentment, guilt.
The list goes on, but NONE of those things serve you well.
If you’ve ever watched an infant, they can be totally upset one moment and then smiling and laughing the next. They still aren’t even aware to hang on to the unpleasant experiences that occur.
We learn as we grow up to hang on to the ‘garbage’ from the past, but we weren’t originally that way. You were born with this ability to let go and forgive, but over time it has simply become a mental habit to hang onto the past, a habit that has been conditioned into you by you and others.
When you can release and let go of thoughts of the past (or future), nothing exists but the here and now.
And that really is all that matters. What is happening right here, right now.
To make it easier to let go and forgive, first realize that it is the past and that you are human. Allow yourself (or whatever you may be holding negative feelings about) to simply be as it is or was, and let go of the desire to make it any different.
The present is all you ever have to work with, and every moment can be new – if you simply allow it to be.
Open your mind to new possibilities and make space in your mind for today to be a new day. You can’t change the past, but you can make today a good day.
To quote a wise Sensei,
“The past is history. Tomorrow a mystery. But today is a gift, that is why it is called the present.”
Begin allowing your days to be better than the past rather than a replay. Forgive it and let it go so that you can allow a new pattern to unfold.
Cheers
Brian