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Frustrating morning/personal update

I pretty much took the day off on Wednesday because I was running errands. I checked in after the close and had another one of those lucky days where the naked puts I sold moved in my direction by 50%, so I got up this morning and was looking to close those out but it was too late. It wasn't a huge deal, it was $180. I had sold naked $17 puts on (BAC) for .38 and they were .19 at the close yesterday. I had done the exact same pay early last week, literally sold for .38 and bought back for .19 and was looking to get back in it again. Well I got that chance but missed getting out a second time. This made me notice something though, I'm currently only putting on positions sizes that don't scare me, nor get me real excited. They aren't big enough to make me want to check in every 20 minutes and they're small enough that if the worse case scenario happens I'm OK with it. I don't know what the right position size is for me right now, I think until I get a grasp on an overall portfolio strategy with position size limits that there is no right position size for me yet.

So here is my personal update. I took a few days off from CFA studying because I was burned out and found myself just sitting there and not really learning much. The pace got so slow that it made sense to step back for a while. I was hoping it would rejuvenate me as that's worked in the past. But the truth is I've been fighting this since day one. I've never hit my weekly target for hours and that just meant I had to speed up the pace as we get closer if I'm to have any chance. I thought it made sense to try and knock this out from Jan-June but Level I took me the better part of 14 months to properly prepare, I don't know that 5 months for Level II was ever a reality. I would rather prepare on my own time frame and then take the test when I'm ready. If that means I have to wait 10 months after I'm ready then it's disappointing but so be it. I found myself not happy in general and just got tired of it. I also had to admit to myself that part of studying full time and then waiting for the results to come out in August was really just an attempt at justifying not looking for a job.

So as of today here is my current plan. I'm starting the options mentoring next week and that last nine weeks. I'm looking forward to finally being able to put in some serious hours on something that makes me happy and brings in money. I also believe it's something I will be a part of for a very long time in the future, so this just makes sense to me. I still very much want to complete the CFA program so I will still study each day, just not 4-5 hours per day. The mentoring last until the end of June and I might be done with CFA by then as well. So the rough plan is to just study both a few hours each day, in addition I will be doing job research. I'll just kind of diligently put in hours each day towards those three things and play it by ear. I also already starting making sure I exercise an hour a day, I started that a week ago. Between taking some time off, exercising, and putting in some time on something I'm passionate about, the quality of my life really got dramatically better these last few days. I'm truly happy right now. I know we've talked in the past about finding that right balance, as of today I've got a better grip on that than the last few months.

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