You’re not unique, and how it can become your edge

Traders can progress when they embrace trading as competing against participants, known in professional environments, but not the case in the world of independent and retail traders.

In competition, you excel by knowing your opponent, and it’s no different for trading – know your opponents to outperform them.

Now, if you can accept yourself as not being special or unique, you can appreciate a vast number of trading opponents are versions of yourself; acting out in the markets just like you do.

The most accessible opponent to study is yourself. Develop the ability to recognise what triggers your actions in markets and you suddenly have insight into what many traders are going to do before they do it. Powerful? Hell yeah! Trading is a game in which participants repeatedly entice others to act a certain way, unknowingly playing right into their hands.

Knowing why it is you want to act in markets is the first step in recognising exactly how these games are set up. When you know the play, you can join the side that wins.

Heightened self-awareness is required and the tools used to achieve it are well documented in a Forbes article by Dr Brett Steenbarger who poses “meditation’s most significant impact appears to be on our cognitive processing and our ability to better filter information in the present moment…. The goal… (be) fully aware of our emotional responses in the moment, so that we can utilize them as information rather than distractions."