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Showing results for tags 'trade discipline'.
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Believe it or not, it's true what they say … visualizing your future the way you want it, is much more likely to make that future a reality. I'm a “doubter” by nature and this notion of visualizing didn't really make much sense to me when I heard about it the first hundred times. I mean, come on! Sit in a quiet place and wish and hope and pray and all your dreams will come true? I think not. That's what my mathematician brain told me (University of Cincinnati, 1973, BA Mathematics). Then I met a subconscious trainer (whom I later married), who sat me down and stated, “Thoughts are things.” OK, what kind of things? I've seen Kreskin and other guys bending spoons with their thoughts… it that what she means? Rather than give you the entire exchange of words (I don't know that I remember all of them, as I was falling in love while I was listening), I'll give you the capsule. According to her, there is this stream of consciousness somewhere up there that if you plug into, and by directing your thoughts, you can harness this consciousness somehow to get what you want (as long as what you want is positive… you can't wish someone a losing trade!). This combined with the notion that time, as we know it, is not linear, we can affect the future from the present through this universal consciousness. That's all I'll say about that. Excuse me while I hug a tree. I'm back. I don't know that I understand all of this, let alone believe it, but I'll tell you one thing I DO KNOW… If you get your brain into an alpha brain wave state and you tell yourself (of have someone else suggest to you) what you'd like to happen in the future, say, the picture of you as a successful trader… you will head in the direction of that picture you've created in your head. At least that's what happened to me, and just about every successful trader I know. There are different ways to visualize. During a quiet time (I know you can't imagine any quiet time.. so start while seated in the bathroom), just see yourself living the Life of Riley (am I showing my age) and having people around you recognize you as that successful trader that everybody is talking about. You can move up the effectiveness ladder (get off the pot?) as you get used to the notion of visualization and get more and more affective with your thinking, but the idea is to get started. Once you start creating pictures of the money-bulging-pocketed- successful-trader-you, you will actually become less likely to allow your emotions to lead you to trading mistakes… because “doing the wrong thing”, like pulling your stops when the market comes close, or not taking your profit when your system tells you to, becomes inconsistent with your picture of who you are. Eventually, if you keep up your visualizations, you become that picture. Now THAT makes sense! My best, Norman Hallett
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It occupies a chapter in just about every trading book ever written. It's been preached by every lecturing market guru since the Aden Sisters danced to the music of the gold market. Go ahead and hire a personal trading coach and likely the second thing he or she will utter will be these chosen words (right after “Futures trading is speculative and only risk capital should be used.”)… and those words are, “Limit your losses and let your winners run”. OK. We've been told. But you didn't have to tell us. It makes perfect sense. “On a roll”… “Go with the flow”… “Ride the wave”… “Get out while the getting's good”… we've heard both sides of those golden words massaged in numerous different phrases. We get it. During my trading and coaching days, I would re-visit students that I trained weeks or months previously and low and behold I would discover that many of them were actually doing the opposite... letting their losses run and limiting their gains. After a while I wasn't surprised… I would go into a refresher visit EXPECTING to see “limit/run rule” repeatedly ignored. I would ask the students “Why?”... There were many different stories but one main theme… all the traders, in some way, had gotten out of emotional control. During their trainings, I had made sure that they did extensive back-testing on their systems and I did that because I knew that the more they tested and saw that their system would have been successful, the more they would TRUST in the system and have the strength the follow its signals, especially through rough periods. Apparently simply back-testing and seeing “would-have-been” results wasn't enough to keep these traders in emotional control. What I had been missing was that these traders were taking the losing PERSONALLY! These new traders had been seeing losing trades as reasons to let negative thoughts into their heads. A loss would mean that all the articles they read about “gambling” futures traders may be true. All the family accusations that they were crazy futures traders … well, that could have some merit! This kind of negative thinking (as well as other forms of futures-related negative thinking) makes it so you don't want to take a loss. If you take a loss, maybe your that much closer to that idiot futures trader that you've been accused of. So you enter a trade (after, say, coming off a losing trade)and it starts to go south. As the market heads for your stop, you start looking around at the news, or a chart of a “sister” commodity that's showing strength, searching for an excuse to make it OK to lift your stop. Found it. “Hello… Cancel Bean Ticket 4154.” Stop Canceled. If the market comes back, you'll be the smart guy or gal that made the right move and turned a loser into a winner. What you really just did, however, is turn a potential winner into a potential loser.. YOU. You may have had a winning trade, but you will lose in the end. It's not about YOU. It's about THE MARKET. If you don't take your emotions out of it, you don't have a shot. You must see yourself as a trader not someone who is becoming a trader. There's very little room for mistakes in your trading. Leverage makes sure of that. If you are going to play in the Big League, you have to do act and do what the Big Leaguers do… right from the beginning. Do all you practicing on the paper-trading playing field. Once you put your money up, you either do what your tested system tell you to do or pick a different profession. If you're not training mentally, you're not giving yourself the best chance laughing in the face of your relatives! My best, Norman Hallett Subconscious Training Corporation
