3 Steps Forward 2 Steps Back. What You Want to Know About Healthy Trading Progress

 

Know the feeling?

When you're overwhelmed by trading?

It's a mental grip that depletes your confidence.

And calls for a way to reset.

Even though it's written to a Millennial

Obstacles are generation agnostic

So this note to a mentoree will work for you too.

Hey Bro (not his real name)

We all have things to overcome.

Yours is turning down a radio in the background that wants to tell you about 27 things you don't know.

And when you pay attention to it

Trading seems like a mountain you'll never climb.

Well the station you're listening to is misleading you.

Here's why:

Change doesn't happen in a straight line.

It takes "three steps forward - two steps back" for new habits to reach the same unconscious level as driving a car.

So when trading isn't going the way you want

You're not failing

You've taken a detour.

And here's how to get back on track.

In Ashtanga (yoga) you're told "come back to the breath."

In yoga generally you're told "go into Child's Pose."

When everything feels like too much

When your body's screaming at you to give up

You do the above to reset your mind .

In trading:

When you're repeating mistakes and that radio station raises your self doubt.

If you're feeling overwhelmed.

Come back to your playing field.

When your attention is on the playing field

you're not trying to solve what you don't have answers to.

Focus on your playing field.

And you can ignore everything else.

You return to a place of competence where the radio is silent.

Then shift to engaging in one playbook trade - built from the playing field you mapped out.

Each day that radio sounds

Take note of what you hear so you can show yourself it's rambling on about stuff unrelated to your focus.

We're not trying to switch that station off.

We're only working on recognising what it says has no bearing on your trading progress.

What are your takeaways from this experience?

  1. It's easier to "let go" / surrender than to fight how we change.

  2. Focusing on a single playbook trade plays into how we change.

  3. To really grow, you have to really learn at the unconscious level. The magnified focus of a single playbook trade is the fastest way to grow.


Here's a 1 min recap from our one-on-one

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Enjoy this article?

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👀 Look at the trader transformation program

Adam Fiske