Lessons from the Pros
Subscribe to the Weekly Newsletter published by Online Trading Academy. Receive the full newsletter with charts!The dark bluish glow gently fell into the room and onto Jill's bed. "Yes," she thought, "it's time to get up." She pulled her right leg over the side and onto the floor while the other followed, and she reached down and raised the one liter bottle of water to her mouth and drank deeply, thereby, starting her morning routine. She then planted her feet and braced herself to stand. At that moment, she shuffled off to the bathroom. When she emerged, Jill headed straight for her meditation pillow. "This is one of my favorite times of day and one of my favorite things to do," she thought. It was 4:30 AM and still fairly dark as she settled into her morning routine. After a 20 minute meditation, Jill surfaced, centered and grounded. After that she quickly changed into her work-out clothes and set off on a highly charged 40 minute regimen of exercises and stretching, which left her sweaty and breathless. She then showered and fixed a light breakfast of hot oatmeal cereal, fresh fruit and herbal tea. "Now" she sighed, "I'm ready to tackle the markets."
Jill made a bee line for her office and trading computer, firing up her platform as she began to peruse the overnight news, economic reports and levels. She judiciously pinpointed the overnight high and low on the markets she was tracking while calculating the demand zones and supply zones on the daily, 60, 30, 15 and 5 minute charts. By this time, she was ready to formulate a trade plan for her first trade, but not before she took her emotional temperature (a technique to determine whether you are emotionally too hot or too cold to trade) and noticed that she was a bit impatient (too hot). She then asked herself, "What must I be telling myself or believing to feel this way?" After a few moments, she became aware of the thought, "I'd better hurry up and put on a trade because the price action is already entering into a demand zone and I don't want to miss out." She then took a deep breath and wrote in her Thought Journal..."I'm feeling impatient about this trade and I am noticing that it has already passed my entry point which means that I am trying to chase a trade and that is against my rules." At that moment, Jill said to herself, "I'm going to use Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT - a tool that is designed to help you manage your emotional energy in order to maintain trading focus) to deal with and lower this impatience in order to focus on what matters most in the trade. And, what matters most now is to carefully put together my trade plan and let the trade come to me." Jill was truly maximizing her internal data resources and creating the optimal internal environment to capitalize on the mechanical data information. In other words, Jill was trading by design.
Trading by design is firstly being self-aware. You must put yourself in a position to monitor your thoughts, feelings and behavior. If you are monitoring thoughts, feelings and behavior, you are less likely to enter into and trade from a "negative trader trance" (a fog filled out-of-awareness state where you are distorting data and prone to erratic and irresponsible behavior like violating rules). But, it is very difficult to be and remain self-aware unless you are in the "now" ? this moment - and resonating with objective reality. Additionally, when you are in the now, you increase your ability to be aligned in body, mind and emotions going in the same direction and for the same goals. Furthermore, when you are in the now, you are more able to access and activate internal and external resources to bear on your trading process.
Let's look at how Jill's trading design supported her trading focus and helped her keep her commitments to her rules. What we notice first is that she had a highly supportive morning routine that was created to jump-start her physically, mentally and emotionally; in other words, keying her internal data. This morning routine included hydration, a very important step to ensure that your cells have enough water to effectively communicate and shed waste. The human body is 90 to 95% water and it is essential for proper functioning. After sleeping for 6 ? 8 hours, your body needs water replenishment. Next, Jill spent 20 minutes in meditation, an excellent way to center and ground your system, lower stress levels and help to focus your mind and body for the rigors of trading. After she was finished, she did calisthenics for 40 minutes, enough to ramp up her heart rate, stretch her muscles and release beta endorphins, which contributed to her feeling confident and strong. She then ate a light, but nutritious breakfast ensuring that her blood sugar would remain at optimum levels for sustained mental acuity.
After the internal data components of her morning routine were finished, she was then ready to undertake the mechanical data components (all information having to do with the mechanics of trading ? news, charts and indicators) of her trading process. Jill checked the overnight data and then did her homework, preparing and processing what was important to her way of trading. At that point, she was just about ready to put forth a plan for her first trade, but not before one last internal data check...she took her emotional temperature. She knew that monitoring her internal data was of vital importance. She discovered that she was feeling impatient ? this is not an optimum emotion to trade with. Upon identifying that the emotion was not a good one, she asked herself a question to uncover the thought that was causing the emotion, "What must I be telling myself or believing to feel this way?" As the thought made itself clear, "I'd better hurry up and put on a trade because the price action is already entering into a demand zone and I don't want to miss out." She also used her Thought Journal to enter this internal data ... "I'm feeling impatient about this trade and I am noticing that it has already passed my entry point which means that I am trying to chase a trade and that is against my rules." She was self-aware and remembered to use a tool (EFT) to deal with the impatience. This assisted her in remaining in the now and focused on what mattered most; that is, keeping her trading rules and commitments.
To call up and sustain your "A" Game, you "must" remain self-aware and in the now. It's of the utmost importance to trade by design, to choose your states, to deliberately engage trading process mastery in order to resonate with what matters most in the trade. The alternative is to trade by default; that is, to allow your thoughts, emotions and behaviors to run rampant and willy-nilly...shooting from the hip and in effect, putting your results and your hard-earned capital at inappropriate risk. We teach you how to trade by design in Mastering the Mental Game Online and On-location courses. Ask your Online Trading Academy Education Counselor for more information. Also, get my book, "From Pain to Profit: Secrets of the Peak Performance Trader."
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