“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless. Like water. You put water into a bottle and it Becomes the bottle. You put in a teapot, it Becomes the teapot. Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend! ”
– Bruce Lee.
(Translation: “…… Empty your mind yourself from the ways water Put water in a bottle and will bottle Put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot Water can flow … or can hit Be water friend”)
Many traders were only concerned have a system that allows them to operate, finding signals or indicators that warn of this possibility, visualize key input and optimal exit points, properly size the size of the position … In this light scan the market in order to find possible winning trades, but driven by anxiety to operate and win, neglect their mental state, fundamental aspect that will determine the success or failure of the operation .
Inadequate mental state can alter our reading of the market and the vision of the operation, causing a losing streak in our system or method when apparently “nothing” has changed.
It is the task of the operator to recognize what their mental state of comfort, through insight into his personality, enabling him to read, interpret and execute operations with an absolute psychological control. In principle we could distinguish 3 kinds mental states that will determine an infinite number of combinations and unique resulting states for each trader:
- Emotional state of competitiveness “alpha male” , with the aim of entering the “combat zone”. These traders perceive trading as a struggle, anticipate the fight, mentally prepare it and experiencein terms of battle.
- Operational state of pure mechanics , where the focus is disinterested observer. These traders do not follow the development of operations to avoid the temptation to change any parameters during execution because such changes are rarely better.
- Neutral or zero state , which represents the emotional neutrality, ie, neither happy nor sad, neither overconfident nor fearful. These traders find their lucidity serenity, which allows thembe detached from the emotions offline results personally. The results do not generate them neither joy nor sadness, simply are what they are,thus can enter the next step without emotional charge.
Practice to achieve the right mental state to operate provides greater clairvoyance operations and adjust minimizes risk, advance notice possible changes and maintain control at all times. It is certainly a milestone on the way to achieve consistency in trading. Related articles: Mental strength in trading What is your style of trading? And you do you think? What is your optimal mental state to operate? Does it affect your status to your way of operating? Leave your comment. Note: This article arises from the ideas of “Finding Your Best Mental State for Trading” Ken Long