This is a guest post from Tino @tradersreality. This article originally appeared on tradersreality.com and is reposted here with permission.
This post is dedicated the those who experience changes in their life that can affect their day to day behavior. Specifically speaking, many may already have dependents or like me, awaiting the arrival of our first child, of which I am grateful to My Lord he has blessed me and my wife.
Before I continue, let’s not mistake the importance of mindset, let’s take it back to the previous post on How I Became Consistent. This post focuses on the steps I took in order to break away from the mindset that was hindering my development as a trader.
But life always has it’s surprises…
I will admit, once I found out that we were having a baby, I could not be more excited, but then it hit me…Responsibility for a human.
So you can imagine what was going through my mind at the point my wife told me we were having a baby. You name it, i thought about it, No going out any more, no more “Me time”, Anyone interested in purchasing an Xbox? apparently I don’t need it anymore…
You get the picture…
More importantly, the concept of responsibility has truly laid its foundation. I am now fully responsible for a baby for the next…Well, till she is old enough to make her mark on the world…or maybe always responsible?
Brings me back to a time where I was in dispute with mother because I had not called her upon arriving after a long journey:
” when you have kids, they may get older, but they will always be your kids”.
So I have established that the new package (baby) has now attached itself (metaphorically) and joined me on my current journey in trading.
What has changed for me?
EVERYTHING…
My previous blogs expresses the importance of mindset and how you need to see things systematically and think in terms of probability to even stand a chance in this game.
I will admit, some may say, regardless of your circumstances, if you train your mind to be disciplined, then everything will be fine?
Must be Disciplined…
Our journey called “Life”, is very reluctant to let you know when a change is about to happen, good or bad, you have to embrace the lessons that life teaches you.
Trading also teaches you. You learn from the great wins to the great losses.
If you do not embrace the lessons that life is trying to teach you, you will never be able to adapt to the cycle of life and you will be stuck in the vortex of what is called insanity, which really is the same shit happening over and over again, not even expecting anything different to happen. Just prodding along.
So what has this got to do with trading?
EVERYTHING…
You have entered into an industry that is renowned for the losses of the majority of it’s participants wealth. If you do not know what your doing. Your damned from the very start, even before you learned what the definition of the word Pip was.
When you trade, regardless of what happens, you must always be aware of your behavior. Your responses mechanisms, e.g emotions: triggering heart beat increase, adrenaline, anger, happiness.
Here is something interesting, do you ever wonder how people always say that they would prefer to go back into work as opposed to be at home mourning a loved one who has passed? How do they maintain focus? How are they able to “carry on” with life after losing a relative/friend?
The mind is complicated as it is…However, habit on the other hand, somewhat diverts the minds attention from what HAS happened and focuses on what IS happening. This awareness of thought allows you to respond to changes in environment (e.g. price action) systematically and not emotionally.
Be Aware…
So I encourage any trader, regardless of what life throws at you. Whether it’s the news of a new born, or the passing of a loved one, or simply, anything that you think may have an affect on your day to day, when you train your mind to execute habit, no matter what happens, you can trade successfully by being aware of your surroundings in that madness of a realm called the mind.
The best example I can give you is, if your angry or upset or happy, thrilled, It still wont change the fact that you can drive your car. Why? because habit let’s you do this.
Always enter into your trading day with a controlled awareness of your behavior. If you are experiencing any difficulty in life, stay away from the charts if you genuinely feel that it will lead you to making mistakes.
Trading requires full attention. Attention to your behavior during and post trades. Only ever trade when you have a sound mind. Being in “CASH” is also a Position.
Trade well my friends.
Tino
You can follow Tino on twitter at @Tradersreality and visit his website at tradersreality.com.