Health & Wellness
Cultivating the psychology required to master your mind is crucial to this operation. There are only a few thousand day traders making enough money to live off their profits. I’d be willing to bet 80% of those people have read these 3 authors and most cite Market Wizards as the “trading bible”. These works are considered required reading for most pros.
Drawing from the principles of Mark Douglas, Van K. Tharp, and Jack Schwager’s books, this module focuses on mastering your mindset .
Mark’s Books - https://www.amazon.com/s?k=mark+douglas&crid=8XZOVYNK8K9N&sprefix=mark+douglas%2Caps%2C171&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
Probabilistic Thinking (Mark Douglas)
Mark Douglas emphasizes that trading is a game of probabilities, not certainties. Embracing this mindset helps you stay detached from individual trade outcomes and focus on long-term consistency.
Key Principle: Markets are random in the short term, but your edge comes from a repeatable strategy with a positive expectancy (e.g., 50%+ win rate with 1:1+ RRR).
How to Apply:
Treat each trade as one in a series of many, not a make-or-break event.
Focus on executing your strategy: daily/4-hour momentum, 15-minute price action (e.g., pin bar at support), 10–15 pip stops, 7–15 pip targets (or 40+ pips for swings).
Accept that losses are part of the game—your edge is in sticking to high-probability setups over time.
Example: You lose a 15-pip trade on EUR/USD but follow your plan (pin bar at 4-hour support). Instead of doubting your strategy, you recognize it’s one outcome in a probabilistic system and move to the next setup. Sometimes pocket aces gets beat to a 7 of hearts and a 2 of clubs. (Poker)
Douglas Quote: “The consistency you seek is in your mind, not in the markets.” Trust the process, not the outcome of a single trade.
Emotional Discipline (Mark Douglas, Van K. Tharp)
Emotional discipline means executing your trading plan without letting emotions like fear, greed, or frustration take over. Both Douglas and Tharp stress that discipline is built through structure and self-control.
Key Principle: Emotions cloud judgment, leading to impulsive decisions (e.g., moving stops, chasing trades). Discipline comes from following a predefined system.
How to Build Discipline:
Use a trading checklist (Module 7) to validate every setup: 4-hour momentum, 15-minute price action, 1–2% risk, 1:1+ RRR.
Pause after losses—step away for 10–15 minutes to reset before analyzing or trading again.
Limit trades to 1–3 per session (e.g., London/New York overlap) to avoid overtrading.
Example: After a losing trade on GBP/USD, you’re tempted to jump into another trade. Instead, you check your journal, confirm no valid setup exists, and wait for a clear 15-minute pin bar at support.
Tharp Insight: “Discipline is the ability to execute your system regardless of what you feel.” Stick to your rules to stay in control.
Self-Awareness (Van K. Tharp)
Tharp emphasizes self-awareness as understanding your beliefs, strengths, and weaknesses to align your trading with your personality. This builds confidence and reduces psychological sabotage.
Key Principle: Know your tendencies to avoid repeating mistakes (e.g., hesitating on entries, holding past targets).
How to Develop Self-Awareness:
Identify Strengths: Are you patient in waiting for 4-hour setups? Good at spotting candlestick patterns (e.g., engulfing at resistance)?
Pinpoint Weaknesses: Do you overtrade during low-volatility sessions? Get greedy after wins?
Reflect Daily: After each session, ask: “Did I follow my plan? What emotions drove my decisions?”
Tailor Your Strategy: If you’re impatient, focus on quick scalps (7–15 pips). If patient, emphasize 4-hour trend analysis for 40+ pip swings.
Example: You notice you hesitate on entries, missing setups. Solution: Practice 15-minute entries in a demo account, focusing on pin bars at support, to build confidence.
Tharp Quote: “You don’t trade the markets; you trade your beliefs about the markets.” Align your strategy with your strengths for consistency.
Managing Fear and Greed (Mark Douglas, Market Wizards - Jack Schwager)
Fear and greed are the biggest psychological traps, as highlighted by Douglas and the traders in Market Wizards. Fear stops you from entering valid setups; greed pushes you to overstay or overleverage.
Managing Fear:
Forms: Hesitating on entries, exiting too early, or avoiding trades after losses.
Solutions:
Trust your system: Only trade setups with clear 4-hour momentum and 15-minute price action (e.g., engulfing at support).
Start with small positions (1% risk) to reduce fear of loss.
Use backtesting (Module 7) to confirm your setups’ edge, boosting confidence.
Example: You hesitate to buy USD/JPY at 145.00 support after a loss. Verify the setup (4-hour uptrend, 15-minute pin bar), risk 1%, and enter with a 10-pip stop.
Managing Greed:
Forms: Holding trades past 7–15 pip targets, increasing position sizes after wins, or chasing trends.
Solutions:
Set predefined take-profit levels: 7–15 pips for scalps, 40+ pips for swings at 4-hour/daily levels.
Use trailing stops only when momentum is confirmed (e.g., breakout on 4-hour chart).
Celebrate small wins rather than chasing unrealistic gains.
Example: You hit a 15-pip target on EUR/USD but hold for more. Price reverses, erasing profits. Next time, lock in 15 pips or trail only if a 4-hour trend persists.
Market Wizards Insight: Many wizards, like Paul Tudor Jones, emphasize cutting losses quickly and taking profits methodically & logically.
Developing a Process-Oriented Mindset (Mark Douglas, Van K. Tharp)
Douglas and Tharp advocate focusing on the process (executing your strategy) rather than outcomes (profits/losses). This mindset keeps you grounded and consistent.
Key Principle: Success comes from consistently applying a proven system, not obsessing over individual wins or losses.
How to Build a Process-Oriented Mindset:
Focus on execution: Did you follow your rules (4-hour momentum, 15-minute entry, 10–15 pip stop, 7–15 pip target)?
Measure performance by discipline, not dollars: Aim for 90%+ adherence to your trading checklist.
View losses as feedback: A losing trade that followed your plan is a success in execution.
Set process goals: “Execute 1–3 high-probability trades daily” rather than “Make $100 today.”
Example: You take a trade on AUD/USD, lose 15 pips, but followed your checklist (pin bar at 4-hour support). Log it as a disciplined trade and move on, knowing your edge plays out over time.
Douglas Quote: “If you can think this way, you are in the moment, and in the moment there is no fear, no greed, no anxiety.” Focus on the process to stay present.
Continuous Improvement Through Journaling
Journaling drives continuous improvement by tracking performance and refining your mindset and strategy.
Why It Matters:
Identifies psychological patterns (e.g., fear-driven hesitations, greed-driven overholding).
Reinforces discipline by holding you accountable to your plan.
What to Include in Your Journal:
Trade Details: Date, pair, timeframe, setup (e.g., “Bullish engulfing at 1.3500 support, 4-hour uptrend”), entry/exit, stop loss, take profit, RRR, outcome (pips/dollars).
Emotions: How you felt before/during/after the trade (e.g., “Confident but tempted to move stop”).
Discipline: Did you follow your checklist? Deviate from your plan?
Lessons: What worked? What to improve? (e.g., “Good entry, but held past 15-pip target due to greed and it went against me and I didn’t cut it”).
Market Context: Session (London/New York), news events, volatility.
How to Review:
Daily: Spend 10–15 minutes logging trades and emotions. Note adherence to rules.
Weekly: Calculate win rate (aim for 50%+), average RRR (1:1+), net pips, and discipline score (90%+ checklist adherence). Identify patterns (e.g., losses from overtrading).
Monthly: Assess progress toward goals (e.g., +50–100 pips/month). Adjust strategy (e.g., skip London session if Asian losses are high).
Example Journal Entry:
Date: August 9, 2025
Pair: USD/CAD, 15-minute chart
Setup: Bullish pin bar at 1.3500 support, 4-hour uptrend
Trade: Long at 1.3500, stop loss 1.3485 (15 pips), take profit 1.3515 (15 pips, 1:1 RRR)
Outcome: +15 pips, $15 profit (1 mini lot)
Emotions: Felt hesitant but trusted setup. Tempted to hold past target.
Discipline: Followed checklist 100%.
Lessons: Solid entry. Set take-profit before entering to avoid greed.
Tharp Insight: “Your journal is your coach.” Use it to refine your strategy and mindset, catching psychological traps early.
Pro Tip: Use AI as your trading coach. Ask it specific questions and use it as your coach and trading partner.
- “Hey (AI), I’m about to enter some trades in the forex market, what are some things I should be aware of? Are there any bank holidays, upcoming elections, news releases, or anything that might cause markets to act unpredictably? Do you see any interesting opportunities or safe setups on any forex pairs right now? What key things should I be aware of?”
Key Takeaways
Probabilistic Thinking: Treat trades as part of a larger system, trusting your edge over many trades (50%+ win rate, 1:1+ RRR).
Emotional Discipline: Follow your checklist, pause after losses, and limit trades to 1–3 per session to stay in control.
Self-Awareness: Align your strategy with your strengths and address weaknesses through reflection.
Managing Fear and Greed: Overcome fear with small positions and proven probable setups; combat greed with predefined 7–15 pip targets (or 40+ pips for swings).
Process-Oriented Mindset: Focus on executing your strategy properly, not the results. Even the best deal with losses.
Journaling: Log trades, emotions, and lessons to refine your mindset and strategy, aiming for 90%+ checklist adherence.
Your Edge: A disciplined approach rooted in Market Wizards principles, ensures you execute trades with logic not emotion. The money is irrelevant.
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Mark Douglas - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VKyIbTotns&t=216s “Beliefs limit what we perceive”
The market doesn’t tick up and down on an emotional basis. It moves simply because of info and data.
Accept the fact that everything is all just info and data.
What you need to do is understand
“If I have the tendency to associate a losing trade to me being wrong, what happens is that’ll now be tied to the accumulated pain of every time I’ve been wrong in my life or all the stuff I’ve lost thought my life"
Learn how to be wrong without it being physically and emotionally painful. Remember, the market doesn’t move because of emotions, don’t take wins and losses personal it’s all data and happen stance. What you’re trying to do is find situations and patterns that align with being right.
You need to look at it as if YOU are the casino. Even though there’s a random outcome, it’s still in your favor as time goes on.
All you’re ever doing is making an educated guess.
There are 4 fears a trader is dealing with:
Fear of being wrong
Fear of losing money
Fear of missing out
Fear of leaving money on the table
There’s only one way to get through those fears and it’s to put the trade on.
Our minds are wired to avoid pain (physical & emotional)
Emotional based pain is information based.
Fear is just telling us that is something out there that we need to avoid.
If I set my hand on the hot burner my hand comes off
The same thing exists for information
Which can lead to fear based hesitation
Our brains will distort and alter that information to keep us away from potential pain.
So you see a good setup and you look it all over and logically it alll checks out, yet when you go to put the trade in you freeze and hesitate because it is a build it mechanism in our brain hardwired to protect us from paoin.
Fear causes us to narrow our focus of attention onto the object of our fear so that we end up creating the very experience we are trying to avoid.
So if I’m watching a market and I’m operating on a fear of being wrong, which ticks are going to give me more emotional significance.
1 up tick for every 4 or 5 ticks the market is in a downtrend but what I’m going to do is narrow my attention to place an absurd amount of significance on that 1 up tick because that is what is tapping into my fears.
Think about it in terms of physics
There will come a point where you have to make a decision on two forces moving
Admitting I’m wrong or losing another dollar (what’s the inverse)
Accepting I’m right and winning more money
After a losing trade when you took a reversal and the market continued with the trend you can take a step back and say “how did I miss that”… now that the trade is over and done with the fear attached at the analysis and execution stage is now gone. So the fear that was there before hand causing us to narrow our focus of attention onto the outcome we wanted to avoid.
The fear is gone and opens up your perception
The market is not there to give you money, you can take it, but it’s not there to give you money.
Think from the market’s perspective.
According to Mark, some of the hardest traders he has worked with are southern baptists because they were raised to believe that gambling and making money off gambling is evil. Also many people were raised to believe in order to acquire money you have to provide an equivalent service, which is obviously simply not true.
Every error you can commit in trading is due to not being able to think in probabilities. If you can think and act in probabilities you can
If you have 3 winning trades in a row, naturally you think your next trade is a winner
If you have 3 losing trades in a row, naturally you think your next trade is a loser
The information itself is not threatening, it is the interpretation of that information that is treating.
You need to be able to use 100% of what you’ve learned every time you trade in order to avoid losses.
Percieve the information for what it is, not what you want it to be.
To truly reconcile your stop loss and be ok with it, you need to accept that you could lose that money and you need to be at peace with it. Risk what is comfortable. 1%
In order to think in probabilities we have to be able to manage our expectations.
Any outcome is possible
Anything can happen any moment is unique so define your risk before hand
Eliminate potential to interpret market information in a threatening way, that way your expectations will neutral.
Objective state of mind allows you to perceive all the patterns you’ve learned about.
On a macro level patterns exist, but on a micro level the randomness of those patterns can result in a win or a loss.
A reason you can’t stick to your stop is because you’ve convinced yourself what is going to happen next.
You don’t need to know what happens next in order to make money.
What is trading - define an edge, define risk, execute the trade
You don’t need to know what happens next
Define an edge - a higher probability of one thing happening over another
Define the risk - an educated guess on where your SL/TP is
Execute the trade - set it and forget it
Putting a trade on is like pulling the lever on a slot machine accept you have the edge.
The pattern either works or doesn’t and you go on to the next trade. Confidence, don’t look in the rear view mirror, learn from the trade and move on.
“If you’re the type of person who likes to use their intellect to know what happens next, you’re going to have a problem being a trader”
Someone who needs certainty. I won’t act until I KNOW what is going to happen next.
What you NEED to know - do I have an edge, what’s my risk, where is my exit.
Why would someone trade other than to make money?
Addiction
Sabotage
Revenge
Entertainment
Wants to be a hero - (some traders trade themselves into a hole, just to get out)
Addicted to random rewards
If you give primates a consistent reward after a task, if you stop giving the reward they stop the task, some of them keep going most don’t.
If the reward is random than you’ll keep doing the task in hopes of the random reward and it becomes addicting.
Leave children alone and they will naturally explore their environment.
If you take a child from a toy they will cry because you took the experience they were having before they were done. If you deny that experience a child will cry and that crying will help put their mind back into balance. Crying is a natural mechanism to balance the brain, the lack of the experience is reconciled by the crying.
Many children aren’t allowed to cry. So you grow up with a build up of denied impulses. So as an adult when you get to the point where you discover trading you see freedom, where you can make all the rules. You decide everything. When to get in, where to get out, you make all the rules. The problem is, we have a natural aversion to making and adhering to rules because we’ve been trying to get away from them all of our lives. Which is why it's so difficult to trade. It all goes against our nature. You don’t want to experience pain, you don’t want to follow rules, you don’t want to be responsible for an outcome. With freedom comes the potential to damage ourselves and the way to prevent damage is to institute some rules and a regimen but we have a backlog of denied impulses where we weren’t allowed to express ourselves when we grew up giving us a natural aversion to rules… even though they weren’t our rules. If YOU create rules, you’re creating them for YOUR benefit. Not rules imposed by an authority figure.
If you trade randomly you can easily confirm your wins and deny your losses. You can psychologically distance yourself from the outcome because it was random to begin with. And when you distance like that you’re removing the personal responsibility. “It wasn’t my fault”
Everything comes down to beliefs.
What controls our interpretation of information? - what we believe
Trading should never be more complex than
The market gives me an edge
I define the risk
I take the trade
You can learn how to swing a golf club perfectly but it doesn’t mean you’ll swing perfectly every time because there will be distracting thoughts coming into your brain that distract you from what you should be focusing on.
“The only reason I’m going to trade is to use my trading as a means or vehicle to require certain mental skills” and over time you’ll make money.
Our minds are wired to NEED to know what happens next. It’s hardwired in there for safety and protection.
Technical analysis helps us identify patterns in group human behavior, the patterns repeat themselves over and over, the outcomes however do not. They don’t because there are always different people involved in the outcome of the pattern.
Our memories will think they know what is going to happen next, this is an automatic process. You have to make this process not function anymore, render this process useless.
Usually it takes catastrophic experiences in order to see behavior change. Most successful traders have lost 1 or 2 fortunes to get to the point they are consistent.
You can control how you perceive information through the nature of beliefs.
The more you learn about trading the more you realize its just an educated guess, its a slot machine where you have an edge. Don’t get so caught up in the individual results, look at the whole, the long term run of it
Execution without errors
Every single error in trading comes from thinking you know what is going to happen next. The problem is, sometimes you will be right and it reaffirms bad behavior.
Ask the market questions. You can simply ask, where the next best edge is going to be.
If you want a better answer, ask a better question because you will get an answer that corresponds with the question asked.
The only way you grow is to challenge the status quo
Hypnosis works best when the message on the hypnonsisis tape is congruent to your belief, because if not, you’ll be setting up another internal conflict
Use meditation to collapse the amount of time it takes for you to realize your acting out of accordance of your goals. You want to be able to catch the though as it simultaneously enters your brain, not 5-10 mins or months down the road.
You want to be able to grade yourself and ask yourself on a 1-10 scale how capable are you of objectively perceiving the market? The higher that number is, the closer to full risk you go. The lower it is, lower the risk.
We have genetically encoded minds that tie things to memories but we know that every moment is unique.
If you are weighing, judging, and thinking… it’s not intuition its rationalizing.
Your experience shapes your belief. Your beliefs shapes your experience. Looped over and over.
A belief is an energized concept of the nature of the way the world works.
You can’t change the structure of the belief. Once it is there, it’s there. What you can do is drain the energy of it and replace it with a new one.
Beliefs are energy structures
Find beliefs that don’t serve us
They don’t serve our purposes and desires
So draw the energy out of it, and replace beliefs.
The same scenario can cause different beliefs in 2 people
Santa Claus is real and he is outside go look
Person A) tramples people to go see Santa
Person B) hears the information but doesn’t act because they are indifferent to the information
We want to identify dysfunctional beliefs
It’s ok to consume sugar every day
It’s ok to sleep in and stay in bed
It’s ok to not follow your schedule and routine
Not following a sleep schedule isn’t a big deal
I believe
Sugar consumptions should be limited
Following a routine and schedule is vital to success
Bedtimes are important
The better I become as a person, the better I become as a trader
Free money exists
The amount of time I spend trading isn’t responsible for the amount of money I make
When we make up ours minds about something we’re doing it with so much energy and so much conviction we literally take all the other conflicting energy and neutralize it so that we can now step into that experience without any conflict.
Implies you’re doing it with so much energy and so much conviction you’re erasing any conflicting energy that’s inside of you.
Trade from a carefree objective state of mind where you have access to everything you’ve learned. If you act out of fear, you’re narrowing your focus of attention on exactly what it is we’re afraid of and trying to avoid.
This isn’t any different than pilots or military or dangerous jobs. They train over and over and over again so that what is catastrophic to most people Is just another day on the job.
When it comes to trading theres nothing in the environment that is stopping us.
“Once we acquire a belief about something that belief will limit the way we perceive information on how we behave, in a way that’s consistent with the belief regardless of whatever opportunities or potentials exist beyond that belief"
How beliefs are formed:
There is an experience that happens and we associate the experience with a word in our language and that word is tied with an emotion and now it takes on a tangible meaning rooted inside your reality. Now it’s an energy structure in our minds that has the potential to act as a force from the inside out.
Beliefs are structured energy. If it’s not made up of atoms and molecules it’s not taking up any space.
“When we’re encountering something we haven’t experienced yet but it’s in conflict with something we’ve already experienced, What’s the force inside of us that says ‘I don’t believe that’ … what’s that force inside that instinctively makes us say ‘I don’t believe that’ … it’s an opposing belief we already have.”
Understand this nature of energy that takes on structure and form. Make the nature of a belief as tangible as possible. The more tangible and concrete, the better.
Dreams are structured energy. They take form and structure but they don’t take up space.
Once we acquire a belief, they reverse the cause and effect relationship we have with the environment.
What do beliefs do?
They create our expectations
They determine which actions we take
They determine how we feel about the results
They manage our perceptions and interpretation of environmental information
Expressing ourselves requires energy. Our outward behavior will be consistent with the energy that’s inside of you. How that energy is structured is called beliefs.
How we behave is an amalgamation of our beliefs and our pre-disposed genetic hard-wiring personality traits.
What you want and desire is generated from within and fulfilled out there. I will have to take a specific set of steps to interact with the environment in order to get what I want fulfilled out of it. All of that will be based off of beliefs.
The goal is to
Regardless of the outcome you get from the interaction you have with that environment, you can acquire a set of beliefs that allow you to think positively of yourself regardless of the outcome. It’s just a matter of what you’ve learned to believe about the nature of making a mistake. It’s now just matter of how you feel about the results
Beliefs create all action. Seeing someone with a. “Free money” sign and most people walked away from him because they have a belief of free mooney doesn’t exist, and you’d have to be crazy to give it away so I’ll avoid that crazy person.
Beliefs rule everything.
Beliefs are closed loops. It acts on a
When people have their beliefs challenged they will try to rationalize to the point of validating their own belief.
STATE OF MIND
A relative degree of positive or negative energy that flows through our brain or mind
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Neutral
Consistency is a function of your state of mind.
The energy of the belief that we’re operating out of will correspond with the state of mind that we experience.
Once you decide something could be dangerous, you experience a state of mind that corresponds exactly with that belief. Because when you think about it even for a moment what we’re experiencing is a state of mind. What’s real in any given moment is our state of mind. The state of mind may not have any relevancy what so ever to the actual conditions that existed in that moment from the environment's perspective.
What if you didn’t have a belief about missed opportunities?
What if you didn’t miss anything?
If you really believed that, would you slip to a negative state of mind. No, you’d be able to keep a neutral state. A missed opportunity isn’t a missed opportunity at all, its just an indication that you still have something to learn. You’d be able to stay focused and stay ready for the next time.
What if missed opportunities didn’t exist.
Child’s first interaction with a dog: Child sees dog, dog bites child. Now the child will associate that forever. So even if there isn’t a true environmental threat there is a perceived threat, and an instant change of state of mind from neutral to negative.
Memories get re-enforced
When the child goes outside and hears a dog bark he’ll go back inside because fear causes us to narrow our focus of attention onto the object of our fear so that we create the very experience we are trying to avoid dogs.
The child wants to avoid dogs because he thinks their dangerous so he creates an experience of fear that otherwise wouldn’t even exist. It is a perceived threat, not a real one. Real or not, it is real to the child even if the environment doesn’t dictate so.
Once the child associates words it becomes reality.
What happens to that child?
He could stay that way forever
It could be tempered over time
Maybe he has a positive experience
The child will avoid dogs at all costs.
If the child is confronted with a. Scene of kids his own age, playing with dogs and having a great time.
1st thing that happens - confusion, because there is new information contradicting his belief.
Now, he can perceive the idea of dogs not being bad.
Now he realizes other possibilities exist
Now he wants to be like the other kids, wants to be able to play with dogs
Now what… can he do it? No, not initially. He needs a step by step process.
Now he has a classic conflict between his desire and what his other belief of dogs say is true
Now all he needs to do is drain the energy of the original belief and replace with the new over time
He inadvertently acquired a desire that is in direct conflict of what he believes is the nature of reality.
However, it only takes one bad experience to change all that progress. If he gets betrayed by a dog he perceives as friendly, that could ruin all he process and take him back to square one.
The main concept is, the kid had a desire that was in conflict with what he believed to be true.
What wins out? The belief, what ever has the most ever
“We will express ourselves in a way that’s consistent with whatever has the most energy regardless of what you may want”. Meaning it is possible to acquire a desire that is in conflict with what we believe to be true.
If you make up your mind with such a strong degree of conviction you can actually neutralize conflicting beliefs. Just by merely making up your mind. “This is not who I am anymore, THIS is who I am” and if it’s strong enough it will move that energy out.
Your beliefs don’t have to be part of your identity, but simply something that is useful in the moment. When the belief becomes dysfunctional throw it out.
You’ve changed some beliefs throughout your life already. All you’re doing now is altering some of them based on your desire to fulfill certain goals, and if you believe its alright to change then you’ll have a better time transitioning.
5 fundamental truths about the nature of the market that cause you to think in probabilities.
Anything can happen
Every moment is unique
I don’t need to know what happens next to make money
There’s a random distribution between wins and losses in a given set of variables that define an edge
Acceptance = completely reconciled and no internal or external conflict
Nobody likes having to behave in a way that’s inconsistent with what they believe to be true. (Aka don’t fake it, be genuine)
You can’t will yourself into “the zone” or “flow”
If you have to exert any force at all than you’re not in harmony
One of the primary charectersits that is necessary to consistently get into the zone is that you have to develop a firm belief that mistakes don’t exist. That mistakes are just experiences that point you toward the way. If you’re afraid of making a mistake that’ll get you into the zone.
Michael Jordan played his best once he got to a point of absolute dominance to where nothing else or no one else matters. If he made a “mistake” it didn’t matter, he’s still the best. It’s not going to sway his state of mind at all.
We feel more comfortable who share our beliefs and less comfortable with those who don’t share them because of no common ground.
Beliefs want to stick around, they don’t want to disappear, because people tie their beliefs to their identity. All of humanity is based on conflicting beliefs.
When you try to fight your beliefs by saying “I hate this about me, I wish I didn’t do this” in essence you’re tying that belief to your identity, further cementing it. The truth is the beliefs are always there, it just depends on how much energy you give it.
Beliefs keep on working whether you remember them or not. We do not have to have a conscious recollection of that belief. The only way it has a potential to cause an action or sway your mental state is for it to have energy.
Beliefs can exist on 2 different levels. Conscious and unconscious. Some beliefs drop down to a subconscious level.
If you approach the markets as if you can’t be wrong because mistakes are only learning processes, as long as I believe something is going to happen, ill always be right. My expectation will always be filled, I shouldn’t expect to make money I should expect to learn something.
I’m not responsible for what the market does, The market can do anything. All I need to do is be responsible for what I do, how I perceive things, am I in the right state of mind, am I executing the trades without hesitation and without internal conflicts?
What am I trying to accomplish? I’m trying to acquire the skills to make the money, not make the money.
Someone else is doing something effortlessly that we find difficult
Desire & making up your mind is the most powerful technique to make change.
If you can truly make up your mind about what you want to do and who you want to be then you can move a tremendous amount of energy in a short amount of Tim,
Make up your m ind with conviction and act on it.
The goal is to become an objective observer of your own thoughts (meditation will help with this)
Affirmations
I acknowledge that there may be aspects, components and principles of successful trading that I may not be aware of. As my awareness grows of what it means to be a great trader I will not take for granted or assume these new awarenesses have intergrated into my mental system in a way where they are completely functional or not in conflict with anything else I’ve already learned therefore the words I’m about to speak to myself I willingly and whole heartedly give the power to enhance and change the structure and content of my mind I accept these enhancements and changes enthusiastically and lovingly let off of any reservations or resistance. I empower these words to become my internal and external reality. My methodology identifies patterns in market behavior and gives me signals to do something. It is normal for my mind to think these signals are telling me what’s going to happen next. But to be a consistently successful trader I realize that I have to train my mind to think in ways that don’t feel normal until these new ways of thinking become a functional part of my mental environment. During this process of integration I may find the rational part of my mind in one way or another arguing for knowing what’s going to happen next. I resolve that when I find myself in the process of either thinking, assuming or believing that I know, I will gently refocus my thoughts on my new understandings about the nature of the market and trading. What I know now is every trader contributes to the overall behavior patterns of the market and therefor everyone who trades is a market variable that has a potential to confirm or invalidate any pattern and any signal. Believing this makes it easy for me to think that trading is simply an edge where there is a higher probability of one thing happening over another. As a result I no longer place any particular significance on each edge that presents itself. Each day it becomes easier and easier to put less significance on each edge because I now believe at the very core of my being that I don’t need to know what’s going to happen next to make consistent money. I just need to keep my mind focused on the probabilities. Therefore I am always asking myself what’s probable, what’s possible, how probable is it and how much is it going to cost me to find out, meaning what does the market have to look like, sound like, or feel like to tell me this trade isn’t working in the time frame I trade in. I know now that every market moment is truly unique regardless of how similar it may look or feel to something I’ve already experienced. Therefor every time I find myself connecting what is happening now in the market with something that is already in my mind I will actively disconnect the two, my past and the present moment and will refocus my thoughts on the fact that anything can happen. All I need to know is A: is the market conforming to my definition of an edge B: what is the risk of finding out if the trade is going to work C: can I accept the risk. Is the answer to A and C is yes and if i have a plan for taking profits then I resolve to enter the trade without reservation or hesitation. I know now that I am not responsible for what the market does or doesn’t do, nor am I responsible for predicting what the market will or won’t do. What I am responsible for is making sure I’m in the most conducive state of mind to be able to objectively perceive what is possible from the markets perspective and behave in a way that’s consistent with my objective of making consistent money. Therefore I resolve to pay attention to the quality of my state of mind by asking myself am I in the best state of mind to be objective and trade without the susceptibility of making an error? If not then I resolve not to take the trade or scale back in a manor that corresponds with my diminished capacity. Each day I’m getting better and better at making these assessments about myself because I know mistakes exist in my life to point the way to success. I was not born with the definition of what it means to make a mistake. Children do not have a concept of what it means to make a mistake until taught. These concepts are learned and more of then then not they’re learned in painful ways. It is natural to avoid pain and therefore natural for me to avoid taking responsibility for anything I’ve learned to define as a mistake. However, there’s a problem here. Mistakes point the way to success, fulfillment and satisfaction. Contained within each misstep is the inside I need to find my way to that success, fulfillment, and satisfaction. If I continually avoid making the connection between my perception of information, the actions I take as a result then I will likely stay in a cycle of emotional pain and dissatisfaction wondering why the world seems to conspire against me. I resolve that it is now time for me to reverse any cycle of pain and dissatisfaction by accepting my results as a true indication of my level of development. My goal is to make myself into a consistently successful trader. The process of doing so has several steps, but most importantly it has a first step. And that first step has to be consistent with my true level of development. Where I am right now, not where I would like to be or assume I am based on what I would rather not face about myself. To find that most important first step, I have to be willing to stop beating myself up, I have to be willing to truly accept that I don’t need to be perfect but at the same time acknowledge that every outcome is a perfect reflection of my level of development. I resolve and give myself permission not to have to prove anything to anybody especially with my trading. I just need to give myself permission to learn. I willingly and whole heartedly give myself that permission now, knowing that by definition anything I need to learn does not yet exist inside of me otherwise I wouldn’t need to learn it which means I am not yet the person I’m about to become. The consistently successful trader I imagine myself to be is a future projection of myself I will go into the future projection step by step accepting my results along the way, not as mistakes, but simply indicating what I need to learn to get to where I wanna be.