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FOUR STEPS TO TRADING PROGRESS

HEAR

To HEAR you have to listen and listen intentionally. You will not HEAR properly if you are focused on other things. This situation is especially true on a webinar or during the trading day when the markets are open. It is essential to set distractions aside and HEAR what is being stated.

RECEIVE

To RECEIVE something you have to HEAR it and come into agreement with it.  To RECEIVE is to take it unto yourself and personally grab hold of what you have heard and make it your own.

BELIEVE

To be successful you have to believe that what you HEAR and RECEIVE can add value to your current situation. You have to BELIEVE that a specific strategy repeated and correctly  executed, regards of any specific outcome, will provide successful results over time. You will act on what you believe In all areas of life.  Please make sure you really do BELIEVE it and are not allowing any contradictory mindset to compete with your belief because it is possible to hold two opposing beliefs at once. This is being double minded and leads to instability.  Being firm and unswayed in what you BELIEVE can lead to becoming a successful trader. (more…)

4 Steps

The steps below are based on the developmental maturity of any trader. Each of us are at different levels in this process. This process can be applied to our overall progress as traders or in the learning of a new strategy. It is important for us to be realistic about where we are personally to become the best trader possible.

HEAR

To HEAR you have to listen and listen intentionally. You will not HEAR properly if you are focused on other things. This situation is especially true on a webinar or during the trading day when the markets are open. It is essential to set distractions aside and HEAR what is being stated.

RECEIVE

To RECEIVE something you have to HEAR it and come into agreement with it.  To RECEIVE is to take it unto yourself and personally grab hold of what you have heard and make it your own.

BELIEVE

To be successful you have to believe that what you HEAR and RECEIVE can add value to your current situation. You have to BELIEVE that a specific strategy repeated and correctly  executed, regards of any specific outcome, will provide successful results over time. You will act on what you believe In all areas of life.  Please make sure you really do BELIEVE it and are not allowing any contradictory mindset to compete with your belief because it is possible to hold two opposing beliefs at once. This is being double minded and leads to instability.  Being firm and unswayed in what you BELIEVE can lead to becoming a successful trader.

APPLY

APPLY Is taking action on what you BELIEVE. You will not fully apply something until you fully believe it. Application requires action. You must be willing to pull the trigger on a trade when all of your rules are meet or when all the T’s have been crossed.  You must also without reservation pull the trigger to exit at your predetermined stop loss. Regardless of what we think or BELIEVE we will also act out of core or dominant belief. To properly apply ourselves we have to revise our core beliefs.  If I APPLY all of my predefined rules for entry and exit even when the trades go against me, my core belief will keep me confident that I did the right thing in making this trade and over time I will accomplish my goals. In addition my loss will not stress me because based on following my predefined rules it was a small loss based on a predetermined, well thought out process.

As we move forward we should focus on hearing , receiving, believing and applying.

Risk:Reward

The typical trader is not profitable, and I suggest that one must learn to operate differently than the typical trader.  One example is how the typical trader looks at risk versus reward. I’m not talking about probabilities or risk:reward ratios, I’m referring to something entirely different.  One of the things I do in my work with traders is teach them to look at it the following way: The trader determines the risk, but any potential reward is determined by the market. Thinking about risk versus reward in this fashion has a number of benefits.

It helps operationalize what I mean when I talk about focusing on what we can control and letting go of the rest.  It is also a good example of one of my rules in action, that we must be rigid with risk but flexible with expectations. This is part of the bigger picture of focusing on doing the right thing versus focusing on being right. And as I talked about in my recent webinar, a specific technique is for a trader to continually ask the following question at each point during the trading process when a decision or action is about to made: “Am I acting in my own best interest right now”.

Trading well over time requires that we control the risk and must be flexible with expectations by accepting the fact that we must adapt to what the market is doing regardless of our wishes.  It also serves as a reminder that upon entry, a trader is essentially assuming that if they go long/short they believe (and need)  other buyers/sellers are going to step in afterword and move the market even further by paying worse prices.

More on this extremely important idea of accepting risk and managing expectations in future posts.

FOUR STEPS TO TRADING PROGRESS

The steps below are based on the developmental maturity of any trader. Each of us are at different levels in this process. This process can be applied to our overall progress as traders or in the learning of a new strategy. It is important for us to be realistic about where we are personally to become the best trader possible.

HEAR

To HEAR you have to listen and listen intentionally. You will not HEAR properly if you are focused on other things. This situation is especially true on a webinar or during the trading day when the markets are open. It is essential to set distractions aside and HEAR what is being stated.

RECEIVE

To RECEIVE something you have to HEAR it and come into agreement with it.  To RECEIVE is to take it unto yourself and personally grab hold of what you have heard and make it your own. (more…)

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