The sixth personal, mental characteristic of the winning trader is his ability to objectively evaluate and judge his own progress. Here are seven points to consider:
1. The winning trader avoids one of the most common thought processes among trading students as they attempt to survive their learning curve: comparing their perceived progress of other students or of professional traders against their own perceived progress and beating themselves up about it.
2. He knows that in any field of endeavor, they’ll ALWAYS be those that are ahead of and behind you, not matter what level you see yourself. Therefore, where someone else is in their trading has NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on where you are at.
3. He drops his expectations of himself and of others. This is simply a different version of this same mental illness described above, wherein we compare our perceived progress with where we EXPECTED us to be by this time. Here again, beating ourselves up is a futile process that only harms us. It does NOT encourage or motivate anyone!
4. The winning trader realizes that all of these placings of where a person is on the road to success ARE perceptions and all perceptions are subjective. He realizes that it’s not likely that either what he ‘sees’ in himself or what he ‘sees’ in others is truly correct and in touch with reality. Those perceptions can easily be a reflection of his jaundiced fears and, therefore, should NOT be taken seriously or as FACT.
5. The winning trade thus realizes that only SELF-TO-SELF comparisons, WITHOUT ATTACHED time frames, are what count. He only sees how far he’s come and he takes pride in that and uses it to further up-build his self-confidence. As to the time element, his motto is: “Time of no consequence to those of us in search for excellence!”
6. Finally, the winning trader, looking upon the obvious success of many professional traders, finds, not depression, but admiration and inspiration by that. He is encouraged when he perceives others succeeding because it reinforces his belief that ‘he can do it, too!’ He is truly happy for them.
7. Finally, the winning trader has an extremely clear method of performance evaluation wherein he can develop ‘the numbers’ to show his progress.
Thus the winning trader’s six personal characteristic: personal confidence in what’s he done, where he’s at and where he knows he’s going.
We have been discussing the universal mental profile of the winning trader, reducing the general characteristics to just six components.
Characteristic #5: Total involvement
Make no mistake. Becoming a successful trader is an immense project, requiring innumerable hours of hard work as the months and years roll by.
While many students of trading seek shortcuts, called, in the industry, the ‘holy grails,’ their existence is but an illusion. There ARE no shortcuts.
It has been said that there are many ways to failure, but only one way to success. Part of that ‘one way’ is not unlike getting any business off the ground: a total commitment, a total involvement, a total immersion of one’s self into the project. Trading success cannot come in the form of a hobby. It takes one’s ALL.
Here are 6 every day activities of this seriously dedicated trading student:
1. He stops wasting time and energy seeking for shortcuts and accepts the fact that it’ll require his complete dedication.
2. He quits relying on the work and research of others and does his own ‘homework’ to find out, for himself, how trading dynamics operates. He asks for answers from others as little as possible and only after having done his own search and study.
3. He is able to do #2 because he has mentally elevated his OWN opinion above all others.
4. He reads his own intuition, watches himself trading, so as to observe areas that are in need of improvement and he follows his gut. He trusts himself.
5. When an opinion turns out wrong or a trade does not work out, he shrugs it off as part of the learning process, as something to be accepted just like a restaurateur knows that he’ll have to pay his vendors. It’s a cost of doing business, but, more importantly, is the cost of his education.
6. The more deeply immersed he his in his trading, the more of a ‘feel’ he gets of the market and the more confident he his because he begins to feel that he is truly the captain of his ship.
All in all, he is totally immersed in his work, disallowing distractions that sap his energy. As one person said, “He’s into it up to his eyeballs. It’s in his skin, in his eyebrows and in his breathing.”
Please note that each one of these traits can be LEARNED and can be made into HABITS by anyone with enough dedication and determination.
The mental profile of the winning trader has the habit of perceiving time in a way different than those that might not make it to the top levels.
They view in 6 specific ways:
1. They look not at the AMOUNT of time that they put into learning to trade – the schools, webinars, books read, newsletter studying, actual trading, writing of rules, etc – but , rather at the QUALITY of that time. This explains why their work is so detailed and so thorough. “Leave no stone unturned,” is the common mantra of the successful trader.
2. They deeply VALUE their time in trading they purposely turn their back on many distractions that are, in fact, ‘good ideas.’ The fact that something is a ‘good idea’ does NOT mean that right now is the time for it, while you’re busy trading and is does NOT mean that it should be given the chance to steal any of your energy from the current focus.
3. They don’t allow the uncertainty of the future to distract them from the current moment and they stay totally ‘in the moment’ while they’re trading.
4. They look at time as something that is bought for a price. While they have total control over what they’re going to do with that time, they realize that to do ONE thing is to NOT do something else. Therefore, when they make the decision to focus on trading, they automatically eliminate everything else. They feel good about the fact that they are paying the price of disregarding those other things for the value they are deriving from their trading.
5. They will look at time as a physical thing and break it up into neat little blocks so as to full focus, yet balance themselves. Many will use a simple kitchen timer to block out times of work and times of other activities.
6. The passing of time is of no consequence to the trader that is in search of excellence. He is RESULT oriented and has made the conscious decision to do whatever it takes to get the job done!
All in tall, winning traders value their time so much that they feel no compunction about giving up many other things, at least in delayed gratification, to accomplish the trading task at hand.
This is the third part of a series entitled, “The Six Characteristics of Winning Traders.”
One of the most common traits of a student of trading is to jump in, eagerly and ambitiously to the world of trading, start taking classes/webinars, reading guru newsletters, reading trading books, etc. and then to soon start to feel a bit of overwhelm.
There IS a lot to be overwhelmed by when one looks at the huge amount of information that one feels that he must absorb.
But WINNING TRADERS do something that others do not and it’s the third of the characteristics of their mental profile: THEY TAKE ONE STEP AT A TIME.
Here are the 6 components of this WINNING CHARACTERISTIC:
1. They are very sensitive to reading their minds, bodies and hearts and know, immediately when they are starting to suffer from overwhelm. So what they do is separate the ultimate goal from the overall task. This means that they keep the ultimate goal of becoming a profitable, professional trader at the forefront of their brain but they do NOT focus on the amount of work that it’s going to take to get there! Anyone that DOES focus on the entire task, all at once, is, of course, going to be overwhelmed!
2. They never think about FUTURE steps. They only focus and concentrate on the steps at hand. “TODAY and one day at a time,” is their motto. Thinking or worrying about tomorrow simply sucks the energy and enthusiasm out of today.
3. They move along on their path at a ‘fair’ rate, but NOT TOO FAST. What most begging traders do is to put too much pressure on themselves by trying to learn and accomplish at a very fast (unreasonable) rate. They, when they fail, they think of themselves as losers. (This is often caused by the fact that the money that they’re using to trade with is under some type of pressure to produce. Using borrowed money is a common example.) Thus they feel compelled to set goals that are not really realistic and they do more damage than good.
4. Some beginning trader put too much pressure on themselves to ‘get to the top’ quickly and they will SKIP STEPS along the way, rationalizing that ‘they’re not important’ or saying, “I’ll get to it later!” Both approaches are wrong. Remember this: SUCCESS IS BUILT ON SUCCESS! EVERY step along the way is important and crucial to the ultimate goal.
5. Some traders are INCONSISTENT in their actions. Winning traders FOCUS on consistency of their work, their studies and the action in every trade they place. Learning to trade is a MOMENTUM game and it takes a consistent effort to truly get this new business off the ground.
6. Winning traders take the time and energy to stop and celebrate each success along the way. They derive great satisfaction from SAYING what they’re going to do then actually DOING it, displaying great self-discipline which leads, automatically to self-confidence! While they immediately FORGET their mistakes, they do RE-PLAY, in their mind, every single success, over and over again, until their subconscious mind finally accepts the fact that they are true WINNERS! They take on a justified pride!
This winning trader, then, simply takes ONES STEP AT A TIME and enjoys the voyage to success!
The sixth personal, mental characteristic of the winning trader is his ability to objectively evaluate and judge his own progress. Here are seven points to consider:
We have been discussing the universal mental profile of the winning trader, reducing the general characteristics to just six components.
