{"id":5482,"date":"2017-01-23T10:31:35","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T15:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonapollovoss.local\/?p=5482"},"modified":"2018-09-21T02:03:30","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T06:03:30","slug":"meditation-tips-for-investment-professionals-how-to-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/2017\/01\/23\/meditation-tips-for-investment-professionals-how-to-begin\/","title":{"rendered":"Meditation Tips for Investment Professionals: How to Begin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><em>Meditation\u00a0provides investors with many benefits. Below are meditation tips from the newly released\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cfainstitute.org\/learning\/products\/onlinelearning\/Pages\/131397.aspx\">Meditation Guide for Investment Professionals<\/a>,<em> the full version of which<\/em> <em>is<\/em>\u00a0<em>available online for CFA Institute members.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Why Meditation Is Important to Investors<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Meditation is a mind practice that helps develop two skills that are critical for investors:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-left: 5%;\">\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 3%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Metacognition:<\/strong>\u00a0The awareness of awareness itself.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 3%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Top-Down Control:<\/strong>\u00a0Choosing what to think and when to think it.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Why do we need\u00a0these skills? Because as investors we must see the world for what it is, not what we prefer it to be. Metacognition is seeing the world for what it is. Avoiding bias, preference, and prejudice means controlling our responses to the world\u2019s stimuli.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Why Meditation Can Be Daunting<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">If you dive into meditation, you&#8217;ll be immersed in a flood of information on the subject. Why? Because many meditation traditions have their roots in practices that are thousands of years old. Hence, there is nomenclature, documentation, mainstream methods, doubts about those mainstream methods, and all of the other trappings of an intellectual pursuit with a rich history. It&#8217;s all great information, but it can be daunting for the beginner.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Meditation Tips<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-left: 5%;\">\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 3%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Practice:<\/strong>\u00a0As with anything in life, there is no substitute for routine practice. Most regular meditators recommend practicing daily for more than 10 minutes at a time. Some suggest that you meditate twice each day, once in the morning and once before bed. But the choice is yours. Isn\u2019t that easy?<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 3%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Be Patient:<\/strong>\u00a0Because meditation aims to help you control how and what you think, beginners often feel frustrated when they can&#8217;t &#8220;do it right.&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/science.sciencemag.org\/content\/345\/6192\/75\">According to comprehensive research<\/a>,\u00a057.5% of people have difficulty concentrating and 89% say that their thoughts stray even when there aren&#8217;t any distractions. This should give comfort on two fronts:<\/span>\n<ul style=\"margin-left: 5%;\">\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 3%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">You are not alone: Many people find the demands of meditation difficult.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 3%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Meditation is a powerful antidote to a wandering mind.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">So, give yourself a break and acknowledge that the right way to meditate is regularly and patiently.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 3%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Get Comfortable:<\/strong>\u00a0Physical discomfort is a distraction that can dilute the potency of your meditation. So make sure you&#8217;re comfortable. Many believe you should only meditate in a dogmatic meditation posture. Other long-time meditators recommend you sit in a soft chair or on a sofa. Still others suggest you lay down \u2014 just be careful not to fall asleep. Some traditional meditation activities have a &#8220;moving&#8221; equivalent, so you can meditate while walking, swimming, running, or biking.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 3%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Quiet Spaces Help:<\/strong>\u00a0Fewer distractions make for better and easier meditation. So practice in a quiet place where claims on your attention are minimal. Turn off your smartphone and the speakers on your laptop, forget about your e-mail inbox, and find somewhere where you won&#8217;t be interrupted.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 3%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Don&#8217;t Fixate on Goals:<\/strong>\u00a0Much of meditation is about loosening our mental attachment to daily distractions so that we can recover our capacity to choose how and what we think\u00a0and restore our awareness. Introducing goals into a meditation practice defeats the purpose of \u201cletting go.\u201d No one is keeping score, just you. This can be difficult since so much of what we do today is goal-oriented or is considered meaningless without measurable results. You&#8217;ll progress faster as a meditator if you leave the goals behind. Your meditation experience will be rich and varied \u2014 sometimes fun and sometimes challenging. Each of these outcomes is valid. At the end of your meditation, accept that your experience was just that, an experience, and not a success or failure by virtue of some artificial criteria.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 3%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><b><strong>Get Help:<\/strong><\/b>\u00a0Qualified instruction can improve your meditation. But finding a good teacher in the meditation style that you prefer isn&#8217;t always easy. A referral from a friend or colleague is a great place to start. As meditation gains greater acceptance as a discipline, many practices are developing global standards, and there are now certified teachers in various methods \u2014\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/mindfulness-center\/programs\/mindfulness-based-stress-reduction-mbsr\/\">mindfulness-based stress reduction<\/a> (MBSR),\u00a0for example.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"padding-bottom: 3%;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><strong>Keep a Record:<\/strong>\u00a0Often practitioners reach important realizations and come up with new ideas while meditating. Take the time to record these insights. They may contain lessons that will help you control your thoughts and improve your general awareness of mental processes.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">After years of research into the science that supports meditation,\u00a0I believe meditation is a beneficial practice. In the coming months, I will describe the major meditation types. Next month, I will explore open-monitoring meditation, or mindfulness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-size: smaller;\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\">Image credit: \u00a9iStockphoto.com\/Kaligraf<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><em>Originally published on CFA Institute\u2019s \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.cfainstitute.org\/investor\/\">Enterprising Investor<\/a>.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meditation\u00a0provides investors with many benefits. Below are meditation tips from the newly released\u00a0Meditation Guide for Investment Professionals, the full version of which is\u00a0available online for CFA Institute members. Why Meditation Is Important to Investors Meditation is a mind practice that helps develop two skills that are critical for investors: Metacognition:\u00a0The awareness of awareness itself. Top-Down [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3],"tags":[17,232],"class_list":["post-5482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-best-of-the-blog","category-the-blog","tag-meditation","tag-mindfulness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonapollovoss.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}