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The Mind of a Trader

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Step Outside Of Your Comfort Zone

Wed, May 20 2009, 08:55 GMT
by Steven Croft

Trading Metro

Each of us has a comfort zone. That area where everything seems to work like we desire, stress is almost non-existent and we can basically move forward with our eyes closed and not worry.

This might sound like the best way to trade, however, if we never strive to grow, to adjust, to refine to get better, we will actually fade away and regress instead of remaining comfortable.

It is a challenge to try new things because once we step outside of the area where we know 100% what we are doing, we will experience nervousness, mistakes, criticism, stress and more.

There is also a great amount of success awaiting those who will step forward and grow. Once we move outside of our comfort zone and enhance our trading skills, increase our trading, add to our strategies, etc. we will soon grow into these new skills and environments and in a very short amount of time, this will be our new comfort zone which will be the reward for moving forward instead of sitting still.

Remember... everything is difficult before it becomes easy.

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Become a Great Trader Without Trading

Sometimes history can assist us in becoming greater at what we want to do.

However, one of the biggest struggles we all face is that fact that we generally know what we need to do, but because we do not like the task, we do not do it.

As a trader, we all want to become better. Instead of using only our time in front of the charts to enhance our skills, use the time that we cannot even trade to become better.

Every Saturday (in U.S. time zones), the markets are closed. This is the perfect time to have you own personal trading school. Sit down with your trading journal of all of the trades you made last week along with your charts or the screen shots of your executed trades and analyze what you actually did.

You will soon discover that the information surrounding these trades will provide a wealth of information that will assist you in seeing your areas of strength and areas that you need to strengthen.

If we never look at where we have just been, then we will never be sure that the path we are continuing on will get us to our desired destination.

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Building a Bridge To New Programs

Every bridge that is built needs to have an important first step accomplished.

A thin wire must be sent from the starting point across the expanse to the proposed ending point. Today that is much easier than it was before airplanes were built.

In earlier days, a designer had to be very creative in finding a way to get from point "A" to point "B". Once the first string was delivered then the process began to connect the two sides of the expanse.

A trader will at some time in their career meet the end of the road they are on and there is no place to go at the edge of the cliff. That is the exact point where we all must realize that we need to be creative and build a bridge to the other side where new programs, ideas, tools, strategies and more await that will enhance our skill sets.

It all starts with an idea and a desire to grow. From there once the first step is accomplished, there is no place that your success cannot travel since you now are capable of designing and building whatever you need to reach new horizons in your trading career.

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The Old Is Forever New

It does not really matter whether you have just begun your trading career or have been trading for years, at times we need to go back to the basics.

The very first group of skills and reasons that brought us into trading can be the very foundations that can lift us to new heights.

It does not matter how old an idea is, when it is revisited, it will have a new impact on us, because we now have additional experiences to apply them to which will bring about new results.

All of us as traders can easily slip into some bad habits and never know it. If we stop and return to our first learning sessions, we will find powerful skill sets from some very basic knowledge.

Remember, it is not how much knowledge that you have that determines your success, but what you do with that knowledge that really brings about the levels and rewards from your efforts.

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Action Needs To Conquer Caution

We all need to be disciplined along with using good money and risk management skills, yet too much of anything can cause problems.

Sometimes we put so much attention on caution to ensure that we only make good trades that we reduce our actions to the point that we miss so many strong trading opportunities.

Every time we begin our trading sessions, we need to communicate to ourselves that we will be confident, prepared and most importantly... committed to executing trades when our analysis shows that a good trade is in front of us.

Never allow the market, the news, your friends, your past trading session or anything else send you a false signal that causes you to sit back and do nothing when you can easily see from your training that you should execute a trade right now.

Listen to the author's thoughts

Published on  Wed, May 20 2009, 09:04 GMT