Over the last couple days I’ve been having coaching sessions with experienced traders about their struggles to make a success of their trading

[Below, I share part of one of the conversations, the issue he’s fighting and the action he’s going to take]

Even though they’re quite intelligent, sincere and have put forth considerable effort, they just haven’t been able to get past certain obstacles and onto trading as they’d like

Maybe you can relate…

As far as the psychology of trading, there are two parts to it, speaking very generally

The first is making sure you’ve established the necessary competencies for trading

That comes first – period

If you haven’t yet acquired the skills you need for this job, you’re going to struggle until you do, plain and simple

If you’re trying to do this job without all the necessary skills, it WILL be rough and filled with self-sabotage and the endless wars with your emotions

Until you truly know what you’re doing, all the psychology books available won’t help you

But if you’ve been at it long enough to have the competence, but you’re still stuck, then it’s time to have a look inside your head

Time to see what’s there that is working against you and reprogram your head so it’s working FOR you

The second part is understanding some of the purely psychological issues that can get in your way

This is where things can get both fun and interesting

There are several aspects of the psychology of trading and today, we’ll look at the first and easiest matter to address

Like with Jeff

Jeff’s been wrestling with pulling the trigger for a few years now

Even though he’s moved over to his sim account, he just can’t seem to enter the trade when he knows he should

He’s stuck

And this has been going on for three years

Jeff’s read several books on trading psychology, bought a few courses, but still can’t seem to simply do what he knows he should

When the issue is a very specific action or behavior, then it makes sense to approach it as a behavioral matter

He’s established a behavioral response to the visual cue of seeing his set up form

It’s happen so many times that now it’s programmed into his subconscious

So what we want to do here is interrupt the old pattern and establish a more desirable one – him entering the trade during his window of opportunity

A very simple starting point is to change up the cues that trigger the responses

Actions to interrupt the programmed response and open your brain up to a new pattern would include the visual, audio and tactile cues, such as:

• Rearrange the room
• Change the lighting
• Change the sounds in the background (like turning off CNBC and putting on some soft, instrumental music)
• Get a different chair for your trading desk

The point in this is to start with changing the sensory inputs that underlie your trading, in the background

You want to begin by affecting your mental state from a sensory input perspective, again, breaking the old patterns

In Part 2 of this series, we’ll continue with the behavioral psychology aspects (there are a few more) in addressing action-specific obstacles

For now, consider changing things up in your trading room and the visual, audio and tactile cues

Cheers

Brian McAboy
Trading Coach

P.S.  If you want don’t want to wait for the other lessons in this series and you’re ready to get past some of the obstacles that have been holding back from success, here are a couple resources that will give you understanding and actions to take

Click here to check out the “Trader’s Guide to Emotional Management”

Click here to check out “Getting Your Mind Right For Profitable Trading” online video course