"Plan the trade" 

"Trade the plan"

Note: You can't make decisions without emotion 

Tick by tick, trading is relentless uncertainty, and the brain perceives you are at risk. 

When at risk, the brain wants you to take in all the relevant clues and act based on clues' emotional meaning.

A hypothesis (plan-the-trade) and evidence multiples to execute (trade-the-plan) are important. But you also want to allow plenty of space for taking action. 

Trading is a game of predicting what others will do. 

Allowing yourself to take action during a trade puts you in sync with how your brain looks at the market. It also puts you in sync with how others are interpreting the market. 

You enable yourself to tune into the moment to moment emotional decisions of traders. And this is how you can predict what others are going to do. 

Trading is counter-intuitive. Functioning in a constant uncertain state is a learned skill. 

Ever asked yourself, "why did I do that?" Your brain acts differently when in a trade to reviewing a past trade. Your brain likely demanded you act based on your emotions at that moment. 

But, many other traders in the market would have reacted the same way. 

Thus, a great source of edge is to track emotional-based reactions. You'll soon develop a playbook of trades that have a real edge. 

My playbook consists of set-plays that trade against "Adam Version One" (me early in my trading career). Because I'm not unique, the market is full of Adam Version One's. 

References:

Market Mind Games - Denise Shull

Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain - Lisa Feldmen