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Assessing Your level of Impatience

  • Do u wait for your Predetermined signal to exit a trade ?
  • Do u enter trades early with insufficient evidence ?
  • Do u change your trading plan after the market starts trading ?
  • Can u wait for the market to fill your at your price ?
  • Do u feel rushed or hurried as you trade ?
  • Do u sometimes trade just to have something to do ?
  • How does this help  or hurt your trading ?
  • One way to slow things down is to write each days’s trading plan in advance.
  • Set your firm intention to follow your plan.
  • At the first violation of the trading plan ,take a break ,and recommit to a steady application of the plan.

SUPPORTIVE BELIEFS :

  • Time is on my side
  • I have all the time I need to accomplish what I want.
  • The world is an abundant place.
  • The market is rich source of unending opportunity
  • I can be in alignment with the quiet part of me even as I watch the market.
  • The Market moves in its own rhythm ,and I can move fast or slow depending on it’s pace.
  • A person is able to create wealth slowly through trading.

HOW BELIEFS DRIVE TRADING

What you believe, consciously or unconsciously, propels your trading in its many directions.  It might be so simple a matter as whether you believe a market is going up or down or nowhere.  Traders have biases that distort their perceptions and effect their actions, and they need to guard against these with various protections and bias detectors.

Other beliefs are more veiled and ubiquitous.  For example, you may consciously intend to make money, but you have a counter impulse that thwarts you due to unconscious beliefs that go against that intention.  Perhaps you unconsciously believe that money is the root of all evil, or that rich people are corrupt, or that there isn’t enough to go around and so you shouldn’t be greedy, or that you should be laying up your treasure in heaven, and not on this earth.  Perhaps on some level you believe you shouldn’t make more money than your parents.

When you want something, you have to really want it and not be ambivalent about it.  It has to be your desire, and not some alien value set by your parents or society.  The flower loves the sun, and stretches to receive its rays.  The plant loves water and digs its roots deep seeking the object of its desire.  If you want to make money trading, you really have to admire money and have good purposes for its use.  If you want to be a master trader, you have to be comfortable with that role, and not see trading as wasteful gambling, or an unworthy profession.

Perhaps you believe that you don’t deserve to make money trading, or that you have to work hard for your rewards.  Maybe you believe that only the big boys win, that the market is stacked against the ordinary trader.  Maybe you believe that it’s impossible to make money in the futures markets or, worse, any market.  Maybe you believe it’s possible to make money trading, but it’s not probable that you can keep your winnings.  All such ideas run in opposition to easy and effective trading.

Just as insidiously you may doubt that your system really works, or that it won’t work this time.  Some traders get superstitious: for example, they believe that they always, or tend to, lose money on Fridays, and so, of course, they do.  When any of their superstitious factors occur, somehow they manage to lose.

Strong emotions also get in the way of winning.  Underlying each emotion is some belief about what is happening.  The interpretations you give events color your reality. Underneath each interpretation is a rock core belief.  “That’s just the way it is.” you say. Such a statement flags a belief. Is it really the way it is?  Do you feel guilty, scared, angry, or depressed after a losing trade?  Perhaps you believe that you shouldn’t lose, that one losing trade implies you can’t trade, that one losing trade portends many more losing trades, or that you’ve jinxed yourself for the rest of the day or week.

Equally or possibly even more important are the positive conscious and unconscious beliefs that you hold about trading and investing.

To begin with, to do anything well, you need to believe that it can be done, that you can do it, and that you deserve to do it.  You’re in trouble if you doubt any of these three.  Your trading is at risk if you don’t firmly believe that money can be made trading, that you can make money trading, and that you deserve to make money trading. (more…)

Kiev, Hedge Fund Masters

I took notes on Kiev’s book when I first read it, and I’m going to select four self-therapeutic passages from them for this post. I suspect that most of my notes are quotations, but I don’t think it’s important to check their accuracy, though I will provide page references.

* * *

By establishing a vision, you have promised to achieve something. The promise means you are giving yourself permission to begin to act in the realm of the impossible, to create all kinds of openings. In that one promise, you begin to abandon self-doubt and the need for approval. This way of being in the world lets loose huge reserves of energy and creates enormous possibilities. Yet none of this can happen until you take the first step forward in pursuit of a goal with no guarantee of outcome. (p. 218)

Living in the gap makes you vulnerable. Once you’re out there, on the cutting edge, you’ll suffer breakdowns as well as breakthroughs. Although it will not always be comfortable, living in the gap between where you are and where you want to be will make your days far more interesting and action packed than if you traded with the intention of avoiding pain and discomfort. (p. 229)

It is useful to note when an activity becomes tedious, dull, and routine and leads to withdrawal and avoidance. This is the time to consider whether you are facing obstacles and are retreating behind your survival needs or whether these feelings signify that you have reached your goal and now need to raise the stakes. (p. 236)

The development of mastery is, in a sense, an existential and experiential methodology, directed at what is and what can be. You invent your own future through commitment to a goal, identifying what is necessary to produce specific results, and learning how to handle the unknown. (p. 247)

What is the Purpose of Trading?

What is the purpose of trading?purpose-driven-life

It seems clear, doesn’t it? The purpose of trading is to make money. The trade is planned, entered, and exited with the goal of increasing the size of one’s trading account. What other purpose would there be?

The dictionary says this about purpose:

“something set up as an object or end to be attained : intention b: resolution, determination”

What about:

The purpose of trading is to not lose money.
The purpose of trading is to practice discipline.
The purpose of trading is to use my talents.
The purpose of trading is to grow.

Or how about:

The purpose of trading is to express my true nature. I was meant to be a trader.

Maybe the purpose of trading is simply to trade. Because that is what you have been called to do, or what you are meant to do, or it’s the highest expression of your nature as a producer rather than a consumer. When you trade successfully, you are disciplined, you are growing, you are using and developing your talents, you are making money, and you are creating wealth from scratch. But most of all, you are trading because it’s the right thing to do for you.

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