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Strategies & Market Trends : Strictly Buy and Sell Set Ups -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: chowder who wrote (5218)	8/24/2005 8:12:32 PM
From: chowder	Respond to of 13449

Everything someone does on a daily basis should be traceable back to an annual or quarterly plan. - - Richard E. Griggs - Feature Article Relieve the Pressure Jack feels overwhelmed. He's been looking at his account balance and he is disappointed by how low it is. He hasn't been making enough winning trades, and he feels the pressure to perform. He decides that the only way he can make enough profit to achieve a satisfying balance is to make five trades a day. Unfortunately, his long-term plan now makes him feel emotionally overwhelmed. He frantically thinks, "How can I make five winning trades today? I don't have that many new ideas." Jack's problem is that he feels he absolutely MUST perform today. He MUST make five winning trades. He MUST increase his account balance. All these MUST statements are undermining his motivation, however. Rather than enthusiastically thinking, "I can't wait to start trading," he dreads facing the markets because there's no way that he can meet his high standards. When you are avoiding the trading day, rather than embracing it, it's time to ease up, lower your standards a little, and regain your enthusiasm. When it comes to motivating yourself to face the trading day with enthusiasm, it's useful to consider the "paradox of control." When you set high standards and start to think that you absolutely must reach them, you start to erroneously believe that you can control the events around you, and that you can overly control your actions. But you know deep down that you can't, and it gets to you. When you put extreme pressure on yourself to perform, your mind is consumed with living up to unrealistic standards. Suddenly, all you think about is winning and avoiding a mistake. You are no longer free to think creatively. MUST statements stifle you. You don't seek out risk, but run from it. You shrink away from a challenge rather than face it head on. The funny thing is, if you were to just nonchalantly think, "I don't care if I win or lose; I'll just try to have a good time trading," you would actually enjoy what you were doing, and creative solutions would come your way with little effort. To enter the zone, you need to feel free, and you can't do that if you feel overwhelmed because you are trying to reach extremely high performance standards. Rather than feel stuck, it's better to aim a little lower. The irony is that if you aim lower, you'll feel at ease and you will embrace risk, rather than fear it. You'll focus on your ongoing experience, and suddenly, you will actually achieve a higher level of performance. If you feel stuck, make a few small practice trades, just to get your mind engaged with the markets. Soon, you'll be entrenched with the markets. Your thoughts will flow with the markets and you'll start to see trading opportunities, and enthusiastically trade them. So if you find yourself putting extreme pressure on yourself, back off. Trading is hard enough. You don't need to put extra pressure on yourself to make it harder. By modestly trying to do what you can do at the moment, you'll feel more relaxed and increase your odds of trading profitably. Innerworth.com (These messages are linked to previous articles.)

To: chowder who wrote (5218)	8/26/2005 1:04:33 PM
From: chowder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13449

(I've read this book several times and it took a while for the following comments to sink in. Hopefully, others will "get it" quicker than I did.) The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. - - Benjamin Mays - Feature Article Having, Doing, and Being: Which State of Mind Drives You? Making profits as a trader is often a matter of trading in the proper state of mind. Trading expert Dr. Van K. Tharp, author of several best-selling books on trading psychology and head of the Van Tharp Institute, describes three states of mind that may dictate how you approach trading. As traders gain experience with trading the markets, they move from a "having" state of mind to a "doing" state of mind. They achieve profitability when they reach a "being" state of mind, though. Which state of mind best characterizes your trading? Many traders start out using a state of mind that focuses on "having." Rather than focus on how to trade in concert with the markets, they are obsessed with profits, and what they can purchase with those profits. The main goal is to make money, money that can be used to purchase objects of desire, such as a shiny red sports car, a spacious, luxurious home, or a large wardrobe of fine clothes. They believe that great financial success will be the solution to all their problems. Trading isn't just a job; it's their salvation. Although many traders are motivated by money, there's a downside to focusing on what you can have as a result of your profits. When traders focus solely on accumulating wealth, on "having," they tend to act greedy and may take risks in an effort to win. There is a blind and unrealistic focus on trading at a high level of performance. Unless they trade at a high level of performance, they can't possibly "have" what they desire. But a novice trader can't achieve a high level of performance. At some point, a trader's state of mind moves from "having" to "doing." In a "doing" state of mind, a trader focuses on learning trading methods, and on when these methods work and when they don't. According to Dr. Tharp, however, traders in the "doing" state of mind still tend to focus on performance issues. They ask the question, "What can this trading method do for me?" They are concerned with how the method can make them rich. Rather than become engaged with the markets, trading in the "doing" state of mind is about evaluating the method, wondering if it is "working." Trading, however, is not a simple matter of choosing a particular method and arbitrarily applying it. Becoming a winning trader requires honing your trading skills. It is vital that you develop your intuition by trading with a variety of methods under a wide range of market conditions, and finding ways that the proper method dovetails with optimal market conditions. The ultimate state of mind for profitable trading is the "being" state of mind. Rather than focusing on outcomes, a trader in the "being" state of mind is fully in tune with the markets. He or she trades in synchrony with the market action. A firm commitment is made to trading the market and accepting it on its own terms. When a trader works to trade in the moment, he or she intuitively sees profitable setups and effortlessly trades them. It may not happen over night, but with enough practice and experience, you can trade with a "being" state of mind. Innerworth.com (These messages are linked to previous articles.)