Stop making trading harder than it needs to be

Do you know what makes your trading harder than it needs to be?

Limiting beliefs, self-defeating behaviours, and unrealistic expectations.

But what do you know about eliminating them? Do deep meditations or thought control come to mind

The good news is, it's far easier than that. Keep reading to discover the simple cure illustrated with real-world trading examples.

Now I bet you're a bit like me: You have losing trades. Tuesday starts with two losers in a row, as you can see in the chart below:

Quick question

How do two losses in a row make you feel? Hold that thought.

The next trade was a long trade. It was more than three times the size of the short trades. Was I revenge trading?

I'll show you the long trade in a minute. But first, I'll provide you with some context explaining how I *felt* after two losses in a row.

The plan for today's trading is to benefit from a short-covering rally by getting on the long side, but...

See the pinkish-shaded area in the chart above? It's a relative-value area where dealer selling is occurring. The price won't move higher until the dealer business is complete.

In the meantime, I can scalp the short side until the selling is done.

Notice anything?

I'm making a decision based on a specific scenario I am familiar with. I make this same trade several times a week, many times a month, and have been doing so for years. I have real-world experience making this identical trade.

It's a decision based on a percentage-based opportunity. Not 'I hope this makes money.' See the difference?

As a risk-averse person, I don't act on bouts of courage or push through barriers of fear. I commit because I have something far more reliable and powerful.

Any guesses to what that is?

Real-world experience in this specific trade, in the same instrument, during the same trading hours. That's the power of specificity.

When you first got behind the wheel of a car, it was daunting.
But even 'driving' isn’t specific.

Driving a manual versus an automatic, doing a hill start compared to a flat start, and reverse parking versus driving straight into a park—each action is specific in its own way.

The second short trade I took was not exactly the specific scenario I have traded hundreds of times previously.

It was close but not exact. I made an error, resulting in a loss.

It's easy to feel frustrated when you make a mistake, right? And when you get frustrated, it can lead to further impulsive, poor decisions. Sound familiar?

How did I feel about making a mistake? Did I beat myself up?

If you had asked me many years ago, the answer would have been yes. Did those mistakes sometimes lead to impulse trades? Guilty!

But when you have developed the skills and experience (repetitions) necessary to trade successfully, you gain a new perspective.

When you only make trades that align with specific trade criteria that you've traded hundreds of times before, you don't make many mistakes. But some mistakes are okay, aren't they?

Trading, like tennis or golf, is not a game of perfect. I make mistakes every day. Yet I know that even when I make mistakes (which mostly result in losing trades), I still win overall.

Imagine how it feels to know you can mess up but still win. It's incredibly empowering. You trade with a sense of freedom to 'swing the bat' without fear of the consequences. Here, I'll show you:

The long trade mentioned earlier is another example of a very specific trade. Intellectually, I know the odds.

But more importantly, I feel comfortable taking it regardless of what happened earlier because I've made this trade hundreds of times.

This trade is larger in size than the first two trades because those trades didn't warrant the same size commitment based on the percentage-opportunity.

You don't have to mentally wrestle with deciding 'what size?' when you enter. It's all determined well in advance of taking the trade and is based on real-world experience, not theory.

To sum up

The cure for limiting beliefs, self-defeating behaviours, and unrealistic expectations is simple: replace those behaviours and feelings with percentage-based decisions.

It's reasonable to expect that transforming your inner beliefs isn't an overnight process.

But by instructing you in all the specific percentage-based trades, the path to transformation takes a fraction of the time compared to the many years it took me and all the traders you read about.

As a guide, a professional trading firm or mentor with a professional trading background will provide mentorship for at least nine months, allowing you the time to complete enough repetitions to make the transition.

This makes nine to twelve months to develop professional trading skills a bargain compared with year-on-year mental torture and brutal losses. Agree?

But let me add this: I love trading. But why might surprise you—it's the sensation of getting better.

Many people experience a love-hate relationship with trading because of the challenges we discussed. But this perception shifts once you begin to experience the sensation of seeing and feeling yourself improve.

This is when trading begins to deeply resonate with you.

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