I normally don’t talk about my interior life much but I’ve had a breakthrough in my trading psychology so huge I feel I have to share.

For the last few months I’ve been depressed.

I was aware enough of it to get on antidepressants, and while I felt better I wasn’t losing any of the weight I’d gained or able to carry out pretty basic tasks like laundry or walking the dog or keeping to any sort of daily routine like working out or putting real pants on.

But boy could I eat cookies in spite of the little voice telling me not to, and all the other bad habits that I hated myself for doing that the little voice warned me about.

Of course this affected my trading, but I chalked it up to a lack of mindfulness: I was ignoring the little voice in my head that saying ditch the losing trade, walk away if I don’t know what price is doing, but for some reason I thought that meant I just wasn’t being mindful.

Why was paper so different from real money? Why could I 6x my account in one day on paper, but during the exact same day blow up my real account?

Then yesterday my friend An said something that burned through my brain like fire: he said that I have the mindfulness part down, which is more than I could have said a few months ago; and that the next step is the action needed after self-awareness.

My brain toyed with this concept for the next few hours, and overnight. I realized that the little voice was mindful, I was mindful of it, I just didn’t mind it. He was right, I have been painfully aware and simply doing nothing about it. Mindfulness is pointless without action.

I woke up today with the epiphany that the little voice is always right, and if it’s always right I will be a better person if I always listen to it. Which was followed almost immediately with the realization that now I have to put pants on and walk the dog.

Fuckin voice.

So I did. And it felt awesome. I haven’t walked the dog in three months.

Now there’s a hundred other things to do today, too. But you know what? I’ve been depressed, and letting things slide and not having any energy and the reality is that my self-indulgence has become a habit at the expense of my trading, my health, my relationships, my life.

So of course in order to succeed at trading I have to master the psychology of it, and while I always supposed it should have knock-on effects in other parts of my life, I never really understood why until now.

For so long I have assumed that mindfulness would bring me discipline and discipline would bring me willpower and willpower would bring me consistency in trading and healthy life habits. Turns out that’s not how it works at all.

I can never ignore the little voice again. The little voice is always right. And it doesn’t just advise me about trading, it’s everywhere, all day, telling me shit I don’t want to listen to.

I can’t just ignore my little inner voice everywhere else except while trading: if I want to be able to act on it while trading I can’t just be mindful that there is a little voice, I have to do what the little voice says.

All. The. Fuckin. Time.