One of our room advisors put this out to our members, I feel it can help! I think it was writen by Joe Ross
STEPS TO WINNING
Do you find yourself putting unnecessary pressure on yourself? Do you believe that you must succeed on every trade, or even on any single trade? Do you have a compelling need to be right about your trades? Do you find yourself trying to impose your will on the market? Finally, do you try to predict the future -- the behavior of the market?
If you have any of the above problems (yes, they are problems) you are on the road to failure as a trader. Winning traders have put such thoughts and actions behind them.
Instead, winners objectively observe market conditions. Winners make and follow a plan of attack, and let the market take them where it wants them to go. They stay calm and relaxed, and ready to anticipate what will happen next. Anticipation is quite different from prediction. Anticipation is flexible, ready to go either way.
Winners find that they are able to freely enter and exit trades without worrying about the consequences. This carefree approach to trading allows them to see trading opportunities more easily, and allows them to take advantage of these opportunities when they arise. You can take concrete, specific steps to cultivate a winning mindset.
⢠Make sure that you get plenty of rest. This includes taking vacations away from the markets for extended periods of time. Realize that you are not a machine. You need refreshment.
⢠Reduce any psychological pressure that may use up mental energy. The most obvious way to relieve such pressure is to think in terms of probabilities and carefully manage risk.
⢠Be flexible. Look at a trade from different angles, and don't be afraid to explore every possibility. You may be wrong, but being wrong shouldn't bother you. Expect to be wrong often, so use tight stops. It's vital to be flexible when examining your options. If you rigidly adhere to one course of action, you may pay the price for it in terms of losses. Try to be as flexible as you are able to be, and you'll see more profits.
Keep in mind that the greatest obstacle to flexibility is fear. When we think we are about to experience harm, we have to mobilize our resources and focus all our energy on the source of harm. The problem with doing that is that we lose our flexibility and become rigid. A rigid trader may fear that his or her plan is unlikely to succeed. Rather than carefully considering all possible adverse conditions, the fearful and rigid trader focuses on only one possibility and develops no alternative plan of attack should an unwanted, or unanticipated, event thwart his or her trading plan.
Being a flexible trader means having no fear of looking at all the possibilities, and determining which are likely. Openness to all possibilities allows a flexible trader to change his or her plans if required, and recover from a potential setback.
Traders are the most inflexible when they experience fear, so the best antidote to rigidity is to reduce fear.
⢠Fear can be reduced by managing risk. If you know that you can survive the worst-case scenario, then you'll feel calm and relaxed.
⢠If you trade with money you can afford to lose, you'll have little to fear and you can more easily examine all possible alternative factors that may impact your trading plan.
⢠Believing in yourself and in your ability to trade drives away fear.
The more you are refreshed, the less you are under stress, the more flexible you can be. It takes calmness and assuredness to become and remain a winner in the markets.
I thought it was good.