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The proper trading mindset and the subconcious mind


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The proper trading mindset and the subconcious mind

  #11 (permalink)
 
Lornz's Avatar
 Lornz 
Oslo, Norway
 
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vvhg View Post

But even worse than relabeling losing trades would be to relabel mistakes. We learn much better and quicker by mistakes than by success. And clever people are able to learn from the mistakes of others....


vvhg

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  #12 (permalink)
MindCoach
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I tend to use NLP for positive installation of thoughts, habits, visualisations etc but with my coaching clients I normally use EFT for getting rid of the emotional baggage quickly, often just in one session (depending on how much baggage of course!) If my clients are happy then so am I!

Cheers

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  #13 (permalink)
 
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 Massive l 
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I believe most do it backwards.
They work on the emotional stuff before the method or system.

Work on the method or system; tweak as you see fit, and the
emotional stuff will take care of itself.

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  #14 (permalink)
 
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 Big Mike 
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Massive l View Post
I believe most do it backwards.
They work on the emotional stuff before the method or system.

Work on the method or system; tweak as you see fit, and the
emotional stuff will take care of itself.

I have to disagree with this.

Most people suffer a loss, then start changing their method, and that cycle continues and is usually never broken until the trader fails. They just continually change their method, over and over, bouncing around with no clear understanding of how to trade, how to manage risk, how to manage their emotions, etc. All they are really doing is gaining experience in how to change their method.

In some cases, cycle is broken and trader tries to work on themselves instead of their method, but it is rare. For the few that do this, they realize it is more themselves and less the method that are causing their losses, and hopefully this empowers them to stop changing their method so much and instead focus on changing themselves (their execution of the method itself).

Mike

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  #15 (permalink)
 
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 Massive l 
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Definitely, Mike. I see that and saw it in myself for a long time.
I was always chasing the system. Then I realized it wasn't the
indicator, it was me.

I guess maybe when I said system, I was really talking about understanding
your risk and using it to your advantage. It is part of the 'system'
and one of the pillars of confidence for entering a trade.

When a trader has that pretty well set, the emotions are handled for the most part.
Of course next comes trade management during the trade and finally the exit.
These are all parts of the trade, that should be included in the 'system' IMO.
It's not perfect but I think if a trader puts something in stone as part of their system
that he repeatedly follows, they will find the emotional part much easier to tame.

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  #16 (permalink)
 
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 vvhg 
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Well, at the end you need both, a valid method and sound " attitude". Without either the whole system fails.

But I think BM has got a point when he says stop changing things as this is the only point I see a trader could break out of a vicious circle of changing things thus failing thus messing up his brain thus changing things....
There are probably more traders in that vicious circle than there are traders deducting money from them.

Still, I don't think you can advance as a trader by deliberately obfuscating risk and losses with new names/definitions. Risk is like a lion in a circus, if you pay attention and watch him closely you can make money with him, but if you get distracted or careless, he will kill you.

Vvhg

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  #17 (permalink)
 
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 Massive l 
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vvhg View Post
Well, at the end you need both, a valid method and sound " attitude". Without either the whole system fails.

But I think BM has got a point when he says stop changing things as this is the only point I see a trader could break out of a vicious circle of changing things thus failing thus messing up his brain thus changing things....
There are probably more traders in that vicious circle than there are traders deducting money from them.

Still, I don't think you can advance as a trader by deliberately obfuscating risk and losses with new names/definitions. Risk is like a lion in a circus, if you pay attention and watch him closely you can make money with him, but if you get distracted or careless, he will kill you.

Vvhg

No, you definitely can't. I did that too for a while. My ego stood in the way at the time.
Trading has made me more patient with less ego. I'm more honest with myself.
I think things through more often than I used to. I search for the foundation of whatever I'm looking for first.

I wasn't one that was always switching indicators though. I took one and completely broke it apart,
inside and out. I tried everything with it (ichimoku). In the end, I realized I wasn't using the indicator, just price and risk mgmt.

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  #18 (permalink)
jgomez74
Chihuahua, Mexico
 
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Thanks again to all of you for all of your responses.

As I said, there are many winner methods out there, but a winner method will not do a winner trader if that trader is not mentally prepared. I am sure that a great percentage of a successful trader depends on his mindset much more than his method. There is a story where a winner strategy was given to 40 PhDs, and only 2 of them made money, the rest lost all the money given. The trading buisness is very sophisticated and you must be prepared mentally for it and when I say mentally I mainly refer about handling emotions. Of course you must know and master your method to be sucessful as well.

For instance a year ago, I was using winner strategies, I used to do well at the SIM, but once I tried to trade alive with a cash account it was very different. The rush of emotions were all in my body and of course my subconcious sabotaged me. I decided to prepare myself and since a year ago, I started studying not a strategy but a method of how the market moves. For me this method is much more than a simple winner strategy, but it is also more complex.

For the last three months, I´ve been trading very successfully using the SIM with my method. I have good trades most of the days, and the days I have no winners, I have no losers either or they are small losers. And if I do not have winners some days it is not because of the method, but because I am not focused. But, still I do not feel confident to go trading to a live account, becuase I feel I will become very nervous knowing that I am trading with real money.

Regarding the change of the words, it´s not that much of a change of simple words, but the trader needs a complete change of his mindset, not only for the trading business, but for your daily life. It´s the way you see life that will make you a succesful trader.

We must also get a nice relationship with the market, not seeing it only as bars or candles, but as people. That´s why I call gifts to the loser trades, because for me I gave them a gift, knowing that the market will always give me much more in exchange if you treat it well (if you follow your system or method, but also if you do not express in a bad manner about the market, how can we want to receive something from the market, if we express bad about it).

In summary, I think my method works very well and I think I have mastered it, for the results I had obtained the last months, but I need to get more confidence not with the method, but with the emotions that arise once you are trading with real money.

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  #19 (permalink)
 
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 Gedman 
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jgomez74 View Post
For instance a year ago, I was using winner strategies, I used to do well at the SIM, but once I tried to trade alive with a cash account it was very different. The rush of emotions were all in my body and of course my subconcious sabotaged me. I decided to prepare myself and since a year ago, I started studying not a strategy but a method of how the market moves. For me this method is much more than a simple winner strategy, but it is also more complex.

For the last three months, I´ve been trading very successfully using the SIM with my method. I have good trades most of the days, and the days I have no winners, I have no losers either or they are small losers. And if I do not have winners some days it is not because of the method, but because I am not focused. But, still I do not feel confident to go trading to a live account, becuase I feel I will become very nervous knowing that I am trading with real money.

j, I do sympathize with what you are going through. However, it seems you definitely have the ability to trade successfully and are very close to being able to do so "..live with a cash account". If you have been able to trade successfully with a paper trading account, then you can do so in a live account.

Please consider doing this: 1. Return to the "winner strategies" you were using "a year ago"; 2. For now, set the "more complex" strategy aside; 3. Paper trade your more simple "winner strategies" until they again demonstrate to you that you can indeed trade them successfully; 4. At that point begin trading them in a live account, trading just one share of stock (or ten if you must) per trade. The purpose is not to make money, but rather to trade successfully with your simple "winner strategies"; 5. Be patient, but as you witness the success of your simple "winner strategies" in the live account, slowly add shares, just 1 or 5 shares at a time; 6. In time your confidence in your ability will soar, because you will know you are an able, successful trader; 7. The day will come when something inside you will click. You will 'know' that you are able to trade real cash with consistent success. At that point you will be set free from your past. 8. If you feel you must add anything to your simple "winner strategies" do it only in paper trading and let it prove itself. After all, why disturb a simple "winner strategies" approach to trading with anything other than a clear step forward?

j, the most successful trader I personally know has a VERY simple approach to trading. Be thankful you found success with something simple. Relax, embrace it and move forward. There are a lot of people, who if honest, would admit that they would give their left arm to have trading success with a simple system.

Best,
Ged

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  #20 (permalink)
jgomez74
Chihuahua, Mexico
 
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Gedman View Post
j, I do sympathize with what you are going through. However, it seems you definitely have the ability to trade successfully and are very close to being able to do so "..live with a cash account". If you have been able to trade successfully with a paper trading account, then you can do so in a live account.

Please consider doing this: 1. Return to the "winner strategies" you were using "a year ago"; 2. For now, set the "more complex" strategy aside; 3. Paper trade your more simple "winner strategies" until they again demonstrate to you that you can indeed trade them successfully; 4. At that point begin trading them in a live account, trading just one share of stock (or ten if you must) per trade. The purpose is not to make money, but rather to trade successfully with your simple "winner strategies"; 5. Be patient, but as you witness the success of your simple "winner strategies" in the live account, slowly add shares, just 1 or 5 shares at a time; 6. In time your confidence in your ability will soar, because you will know you are an able, successful trader; 7. The day will come when something inside you will click. You will 'know' that you are able to trade real cash with consistent success. At that point you will be set free from your past. 8. If you feel you must add anything to your simple "winner strategies" do it only in paper trading and let it prove itself. After all, why disturb a simple "winner strategies" approach to trading with anything other than a clear step forward?

j, the most successful trader I personally know has a VERY simple approach to trading. Be thankful you found success with something simple. Relax, embrace it and move forward. There are a lot of people, who if honest, would admit that they would give their left arm to have trading success with a simple system.

Best,
Ged

Thank you very much Gedman for your reply and your advices.

Talking about the method and the strategies, I feel much more confident and I enjoy more trading with the complex method than the simplest ones. I trade futures.

The complex method has a much better risk to reward ratio. When I started trading with the strategies, I kept looking for something else, because I did not know how the market moved. I then found the method I am using now, and this helped me understand much better the market and how it moves.

It is a much more complete method, that´s why I called it more complex, but in fact, once I understood it and mastered it, I feel much better trading with this method. I like it and enjoy it much more.

Since I posted the first message of this thread, I have kept trading successfully and better every day. I trade the live market but using a SIM account.

What I need now to go trading with a cash or real account is to let go that experience when I started trading with a cash account and I felt very nervous and I did not do well. It was only three days and I decided to get a better preparation.

The only thing that I need to tune up with the method is about the stop loss. The method says that I must have a stop loss of only 5 ticks, but I do not feel comfortable with such a small stop loss in some trades. Some trades need a little bit more room to work, so I tend to move the stop loss (that I am supposed not to move), most of the times it works, but It has also been sometimes, that the trade goes against me and I keep moving the stop loss, because now the trade is going against me not 5 ticks, but maybe 10 or 15 ticks, and I expect the market to retrun to my entry. Again, most of the times, it return to my entry and goes into the direction of the trades, but some others it does not and I need to hold the trade that can become very bad.

Of course that if something like that happens trading with a cash account, I will become very nervous. I know that I should not move my stop loss according to the method, but in some trades moving the stop loss a little bit has worked very good. So, I need to master when to move it and when not to move it, since I have different strategies for entries within the same method.

I also need to feel more confident that I will be doing good trading with a real account as I´ve been doing with a cash account.

Another issue is that I and my family have been living from my savings, but they are almost gone, so I need to start making money. I know is not the best position to start trading because you need the money, but it is also true that I´ve been preparing myself for more than a year and according to the record of the last four months, I am ready to start trading taking only the most secure trades. I still have some investments that I can use in case I need them.

I´ve been looking for a part time job, but that has also made me feel I am getting unfocused. I think, "If I feel ready, If I´ve been trading successfully most of the days for the last four months, why shouldn´t I try to start trading with a real account, being careful of not acting by impulses, but taking the more secure trades.

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Last Updated on February 12, 2012


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