Today is Your Most Important Trading Day

Had a bad run of trades? 

You sat down at the computer last week with your cup of coffee and your favourite pair of lucky slippers on, just another trading day. You were making good progress, and there was a little whisper from way back in your head saying, 'I think we can do this. We're getting there...'

And then you went into self-destruct mode. Trade after trade of emotional trading, the monster coming out of nowhere and taking control, firing off orders like a stereotypical office-manager flipping notes at the pole-dancer after one too many drinks.

It hurts. Hurts like hell.

But tomorrow will be different, right? You sit in the corner of the room after the trading destruction derby and feel awful about yourself. You go for a walk and try and figure this shit out. It needs to change and YOU need to change.

You get revved up and ready. Tomorrow will be different. You're going to change and become more disciplined.

Right?

Except, you've been saying that for six months, a year, longer even.

Until you come to realise that you only ever have TODAY to trade effectively, you are going to continue making excuses and mistakes.

Every day when you wake up and sit at that computer, that is your most important trading day. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Today.

You want to be a trader? You need to be willing to focus yourself TODAY. The discipline needs to be there TODAY. The ability to follow your rules ODAY and never mind how long your setup is taking, or the loss you made yesterday that you want to make back.

It sounds like it should be easy, but it isn't. We all have 'off' days. You know the ones where we wake up and it feels like a greyness has settled over the world. We don't want to work, we certainly don't want to do anything difficult.

But guess what? Today is the most important trading day. And when you are feeling like that, you should underline those words on a post-it and stick it to your computer monitor. Because those are the days when the damage tends to be done.

When you feel like that, try this... Just don't trade.

I'll give you a minute to get over that ground-breaking statement. It can be hard to grasp.

Today is your most important trading day. And every day, focus number one is protecting your account. If you feel like rubbish, the best defensive move can be to simply stay away.

Approach every day like it is your only trading day. Don't allow yourself to slip and then assure yourself that tomorrow will be better. In trading, you don't have a guarantee of tomorrow. That damaging behaviour you keep carrying out WILL one day pull your ability to trade from under you. The account will disappear and you will be left with nothing. It won't matter what you tell yourself on your walks or when you're rocking back and forth in the corner of the room. Because you will have allowed yourself to forget that TODAY is your most important trading day, and that will have finally caught up with you.

If you want to succeed, in trading or anything else, you need to come to terms with the fact that all you have is today to make it happen. Your focus and your drive and your determination needs to be there today. Not tomorrow. Not yesterday.

Think of the constant dieter. Always tomorrow. Always next week. And in the interim, they continue on with the destructive behaviour that continues adding to their problem and making it more difficult to overcome.

Now think of the person who loses all the weight. They decided that TODAY is their most important dieting day. All of their focus and determination went into it and they stuck with it on every today.

If you want it, whatever it is, go get it TODAY.

I hope you've all had a great trading week!

James Orr

Source: http://www.thinklikeatrader.co.uk/2018/05/today-is-your-most-important-trading-day.html

What Drives Your Trading? The Need To Avoid Losses, Or The Desire To Win?

Yesterday I had an interesting consultation with one of my long standing professional trading clients: He observed that his desire to win was oftentimes superseded by the desire not to lose. He said whenever he traded like that he would lose money.

I was delighted that my client had made this profound observation about his deeper emotions. These kinds of insights, when they come to you without being prompted, are the domain of an emotionally trained brain that has learned to go deeper beyond the intellectual part of the brain into the hidden subconscious terrain.

Your trading decisions are made with the intellectual part of your brain which resides in the neo cortex:

Yet 95% of all your thinking feeling and actions are automatic. They reside in the amygdala, which runs the survival instincts and every part of the business that keeps you functioning on a daily basis as a human being. Without the amygdala you could not operate the way you do. I believe that you can already see how this system has hidden value conflicts readily built into the operating mechanics of your brain.

Imagine you had to consciously think how to move every limb in your body, which muscle to engage and limb to use to wash your hair, operate the buy and sell button on your trading account, and how to do all those routine tasks you do every day without giving them another thought.

The amygdala ensures your survival and it does so on auto pilot, which is great.

The problem is that you are making your trading decisions with the 5% of your conscious intellectual brain, while your actions are driven by the 95% of your subconscious brain.

Your body is the final feed back outpost: When you notice feeling uneasy, stressed or hesitant you are observing the final warning signs that you are not in sync with your desired outcome. Your feeling tone is the last feedback, sign before the road comes to an end. There is a barrier beyond there is no further to travel on that road. You must either turn back, or face the consequences of walking beyond the barrier.

The secret is to align the subconscious part of your brain with the conscious part of your brain. When the subconscious and conscious parts of your brain are aligned you are congruent with your desires and intentions. Change can happen now.

Guided meditation is a very effective tool that allows you to access the deeper levels of your subconscious mind.

When you learn to notice whenever your trading decisions arise from survival needs versus the desire to make a winning trade you start thinking like a winning trader

Mercedes Oestermann van Essen is a thought leader in the field of trading psychology. She is the author of "The Buddhist Trader" and other books on trading psychology and personal development.

Her unique guided meditations for traders increase cognitive awareness and improve trading.

Please visit: http://TheBuddhistTrader.com and sign up for the monthly Buddhist Trader newsletter for the latest offers and insights.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Mercedes_Oestermann_Van_Essen/112733

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