Of Arguments and Defenses – Picking Your Battles Wisely

I do not usually scroll the news feed in my Facebook accounts nowadays. But earlier today, I get the chance to check some of the happenings there. What caught my attention are the posts about inflation rate in the country.

Seeing how people reacted, complain, and say opinions about the inflation drove me to write this blog entry.

some posts from twitter.

I know rants and comments have always been around since social media was born. Twitter and Facebook have been an avenue to express one’s opinion and suggestions. It shouldn’t be new to me, right?

But since we are traders, how we deal with these news are important. Better to say, how you are TOLERATING these NOISE is vital to your trading journey. Do you get involved in these conversations? Are you being one of those “keyboard warriors” out there?

Because you know, we are always told to choose our battles wisely.

I don’t know what trading is for you, but if you are one of those people who view trading as a vehicle to escape the rat race, I suppose you should be working hard and focusing on your 10,000 hours.

Trading has been very helpful in my personal development. It builds my character. It taught me how to let go of the things I cannot control – which is one of the most important factor on executing trades.

In trading, what can we control?

• The hard work we put in.
• The depth of planning we do in how to handle the trade.
• Where we enter and exit.
• Risk management and position sizing… (and many others)

But NEVER the price action. The moment you enter the trade, you must let go of all the thoughts running in your head about your wishes on what the price will do. You can’t be entering a trade and force the price to go up or go to the direction according to what you have planned.

Because trading is a game of POSSIBILITIES.

 

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How you do anything, is how you do everything.

If you are not able to filter out what problems you will partake in solving, or worse, if you are not able to determine which things you are going to put an effort in, you definitely have some work to do. It will not only reflect in your life, but you will also bring that inability to your trading career.

Let me give you a guide on how do this – picking your arguments.

Suppose you are faced with some argument and you feel that there’s an urge to win the debate. But before engaging yourself in dispute, or even before saying anything, let me give you some guide or “REFLECTION QUESTIONS” that you can use before doing or saying anything.

1. Is this something that is important to me?
2. Is this something that, if I let go, will create a negative effect on my life?
3. Is my energy and effort on spending time on this matter will yield a good effect on me?
4. Is this something that can help others if I will start concerning about this?
5. Is this something that can make a difference in my life?
6. Is this something urgent and needs to be deal with immediately?

Well, it’s natural for a person to be defensive. But the key here is CONSCIOUSNESS. (I wanted to expound more about this, but this is a whole new deep and different story, so I will be telling about this topic on a separate blog entry.)

Our mind usually tricks us about urgency. That we have to respond immediately when we are faced with these situations. That delay in rebuttals means weakness and being a loser.

NO. It’s a big NO.

Because being at peace is much more important than being right. Being into arguments damages our emotional health. If we are being consumed in the things that are not in service of our goals, it drains our energy, it magnifies our emotions. When we take a close look at it, we don’t want to be dealing with our emotions as much as possible when it comes to trading right?

 

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One of the greatest game changer in my life is discovering an ancient Greek philosophy called Stoicism.

Take what I have said earlier about the reflection questions. All of those things can be simplified by this THOUGHT PROCESS:

In fact, you can just forget all my sample reflection questions earlier and simply adapt this process.

In the end, all we have to be is not to worry about anything. Because if you can do something, then just do it. If you can’t do something, then let go of it. As simple as that.

It takes constant practice to be able to have this thought process in split seconds, and use it repeatedly. Believe me, I have also been in the phase where I think I have to care about everything. But I changed due to the books I am reading and the environment I am in. It helps to read books about the mind, and apply what you have learned from those consciously. This is where you should get receptive – in learning the lessons of the book, NOT in being receptive about chismis, disagreements and all other negative stuffs.

Giving attention to things that doesn’t bring value to our lives means having less attention to things that really matter. You choose which of the two you will put more weight in. It’s like having this kind of weighing scale:

 

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Going back to my introduction about inflation rate, do you think it is something that can help you grow as a trader? Is it something that you can control? Do spending time on having opinions and thinking about that and all other issues around us contributes to your personal development?

 

Focus on what you can control, which is YOURSELF.

Pause, think twice, act wisely.

Start by letting go of the things you can’t change.

Preserve your energy and time and spend it on something that is important and will add value to your life.

 

Because at the end of the day, it all boils down to:

“Where did your 10,000 hours go?”

 

 

*This is part 1 of 2 of Picking Your Battles Wisely title.
Watchout for the next entry next week 😉