Daily Simple Trading Habit #5 - Get Balanced

"To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of the things that are happening inside you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you."

--Thich Nhat Hanh

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Take a few minutes at the start of each trading day/session to get yourself what I call “balanced.” Balanced is the term that I use to reference something just a bit beyond “being in the zone.” When you achieve a balanced state, there’s nothing good nor bad in your day. Events are just that… events, and you handle all with aplomb.

Getting balanced is better than being in the zone because being in the zone suggests everything is just going your way. Every shot you take falls… every putt rolls straight and true. Even your mistakes turn out better than many of your intentional acts on a regular day.

When you’re balanced, you don’t need the perfect day. No matter what happens, you know that you can and will handle it appropriately. You neither get too high, nor too low based on outcomes… You process everything the same way. Missed shots aren’t substantially different from those you make… Putts that roll off the fairway aren’t “out to get you.”

How does one get balanced?

Any number of different ways you’ve heard about. I meditate. Some people pray. Others exercise. Still others come up with their own unique way of centering themselves.

I really don’t care how you do it. The important thing is to implement a practice and be consistent.

The rewards will show up fairly quickly.