Good morning everyone, I have two questions for those of you who are consistently profitable. What is your optimal mental state when you trade? Is it confidence, caution, aggressiveness, combination of different states, etc? How do you consistently maintain an optimal mental state despite the difficulties that you may experience on a day-to-day basis? I'm preparing the groundwork to be a successful trader and I've placed very few trades over the years. I'm currently learning about mindset and I realized from my studies that this is a current major issue I need to work on. I'm a stay-at-home father who loves to build and refine systems to make executing my responsibilities efficient. One example of an efficient system that I've built is around meals. In a matter of about three hours, I update and track my grocery budget, take an inventory of what I currently have, plan my meals for 1 to 2 weeks, buy my groceries, and put them away inside my house in its proper place. My problem that I have is not in building and refining systems but it is maintaining an optimal state for consistently executing my system. After taking further examination of my thought processes this morning, I've been saying to myself, “this is overwhelming” or “I hate doing this”. My main opportunity for change is that I've been thinking negatively without even realizing that I'm doing it. I can't afford to have this negative mental state crossover into my trading. Thanks!
Getting yourself in a good mental state is the key to success in trading. There are many how to's. Some. Like yoga, meditation other like nlp.
Has to do with "knowing" that your trade is "probably correct". You know this when you can explain "why" it's probably correct within your method. Of course we're not allowed to "know for sure" on any play, but we can know what is more likely and trade that.
Yes, mental state is important, but it's just as important to BELIEVE and KNOW what you're doing works. You can have the most solid mind set in the world and if you don't actually believe the trade's you're taking they will not work out. On the flip side you can have an amazing system or style of trading, but if you don't actually believe it and don't have the mind set to properly trade it, you will still lose money.
You won't "believe" in your trading until you understand and can explain "why" your plays have >50-50 probability of working.
Yes, to be clear, I am not disagreeing with you. That's why I said "BELIEVE and KNOW" (the know being the understanding of your edge, which can translate into belief).
I agree with you, however, I would say that a person can believe in their system and still produce losses. There may be some other underlying issues like anger from a situation that can cause someone to go on tilt. How does a person properly handle that? I think this is where I can get caught up. My kids can "drive me crazy" and I carry that state with me through the day.