Friday, May 01, 2009

Where Is Your Head When You're Trading?

Where is your head during the market day?

Are you looking through the rear-view mirror, criticizing your last trade?

Are you looking at your profit/loss for the day and filtering trades through that?

Are you distracted by people or the phone?

Are you thinking about yourself and how well or poorly you've been doing?

Are you locked in an opinion of what the market "should" be doing instead of observing what it *is* doing?

Are you wanting to get your money back after a loss or hold onto it after a gain?

Are you focusing more on yourself or on what markets are doing?

Many times, our head just isn't in the game. We can't be focused on performance outcomes and immersed in our performance at the same time.

When you ask yourself questions such as the ones above, you are thinking about your thinking: you become your own observer. Asking the right questions: That is the start of all self-coaching. With repetition, we internalize the coaching role and take control over our learning curves.
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