The Final (Sixth) Characteristic of the Winning Trader

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.