Do You Trade The Market or Your Emotions?

As traders try to improve performance, the one piece of knowledge that is often overlooked, is self-knowledge. Most traders would benefit by simply focusing on doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t, which sounds obvious, but the reality is that most do just the opposite. Learning to identify which behaviors work and which don’t is not as fun or interesting as learning a new trading strategy or set-up.; and awareness of one’s internal state is just as critical, but that is typically not dealt with.  As a result, most traders focus outward and ignore their inner process. And the way this often plays out for a trader is they trade their emotions and not the market.