Mindfulness is the opposite of mindlessness. Mindlessness means living by your conditioning. It means assuming that all of your beliefs are fixed and true, so that all you can do is find evidence to support that truth. Mindfulness, in contrast, is the continual creation of new concepts and categories with no real attachment to their truth.

Mindfulness is a state of being. Harvard psychologist, Ellen Langer, has popularized the term through two books—Mindfulness and The Power of Mindful Learning. She defines mindfulness as a five states of being in which one is likely to be.

I’d like to briefly discuss all of these concepts as they relate to improved trading beginning with the concept of Creating New Categories.

Creating New Categories

Most strong opinions rest upon global categorization. The market went up yesterday. We’re in a c-wave of an abc correction. Those are global categories that you probably use to form your opinions. But what if you formed new categories of thought about the market? Think about the market in great detail. Who are the different players? What do you think each of them is doing with respect to the market? Call people you know and notice their reactions and their perspectives. Break old thinking patterns by creating new categories and you’ll step up your trading as well.
In many ways, this aspect of mindfulness is a lot like reframing as discussed in my Peak Performance Course. You might want to review that material.

I will discuss the second concept, Welcoming New Information, in my next post.