Much of our behavior--in and out of markets--is state dependent. How we interact with others, how we take risk, how we tackle challenges: all of these are impacted by the degree to which we are energized or fatigued; calm or keyed up; fulfilled or frustrated; distracted or focused; etc.
In the right states, we can access our greatest strengths.
In the wrong states, we fall victim to our greatest weaknesses.
Awareness and management of our states--and the ability to cultivate new states and extend existing ones--is central to peak performance.
One of the great challenges of trading is balancing market awareness and self-awareness.
You have a trading process: a way of identifying opportunity, defining trades, and managing the risk and reward around positions.
Do you have a self-awareness process?
We track price action closely; how aware are we of ourselves and whether we are in the right states for peak performance?
This is one of those areas where work on our trading requires work on ourselves: in becoming better traders, we become more self-aware and self-determining human beings.
I look forward to working on that self-development at the workshop.
Further Reading: A Cognitive View of Trading Psychology
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