If You Understand This, You'll Significantly Improve Your Trader's Mindset
August 24, 2018


At Trading Composure, our goal is to help you overcome your emotions for a more profitable trading experience.

By subscribing to the Trading Composure Newsletter, you'll get regular tips, insights, and strategies for improving your trading psychology.

We'll show you how to think in probabilities, manage your emotions, develop discipline, and make good and confident trades.

Our content is designed to be easy to read and understand —we're not here to impress you with jargon, we're here to help you grow as a trader and see results.

So, consider subscribing, and let us help you master your trading psychology.

If You Understand This, You'll Significantly Improve Your Trader's Mindset

The death of certain illusions is often accompanied by a significant shift in how you approach trading.  So here’s something that will hopefully help kill one of the most pervasive illusions out there.

[Tweet “If You Understand This, You’ll Significantly Improve Your Trader’s Mindset”]

Imagine you’re flying an airplane – one of those old fighter planes from WW2.

You take a look on your left, and then on your right, and you see a vast horde of flying monsters, with razor claws and pointy fangs.

And they’re out to get you.

You freak the F*** out!

But as they approach, they make a deal with you: As long as you keep the plane in the air and at its current altitude, you won’t have to worry about them attacking you.

But if you ever begin descending and landing, they’ll immediately tear you and your plane apart.

Obviously, you don’t like that idea very much, so you say: “Okay, I’ll obey. Please don’t kill me.” And you do what you can to keep your plane in midair as per their request.

As you do that, the monsters disappear one by one, so you breathe a sigh of relief, and everything seems to be fine – for a while.

The problem is, you soon get fed up of cruising aimlessly. You get lonely, miserable, bored, anxious… and more importantly, you’re running out of fuel!

You see some other planes in the distant heading towards the ground, and you know that’s where you really have to be heading right now.

But you can’t.

Yet, at one point, you pluck the courage and start descending. But the moment you do, those monsters swarm right back again and threaten to rip you to shreds.

But here’s the interesting thing: although these monsters are very good at taunting and threatening, they never actually cause you any physical harm.

Ever seen a Chihuahua on a leash barking and growling at some other bigger dog?

[I’ve seen that countless times on the streets… What’s up with these Chihuahuas anyways?]

Because they’re on a leash, they’re all mouthy. But it’s just for show…

But let’s get back to the monsters…

Why can’t they hurt you?

Well, simply because they can’t. Just like the bluffing Chichuachua, all they do is growl loudly, show their fangs, and look terrifying – but physically, they can’t even touch you.

That’s why they’re illusions — an illusion is something that appears to be a certain way, but in reality, it’s something else.

The only power they have is the ability to intimidate. So if you believe they’re really going to do what they say they’ll do, then they’ve got control of your destiny.

But once you realize that they have no capacity to physically harm you, then you’re free. You can take your plane wherever you want as long as you’re willing to accept the monsters’ presence.

All you have to do to reach land is to let the monsters gather around as they usually do, let them roar all they want, and keep descending towards land. And they will scream and protest with all their might but, really, they’re powerless to stop you.

But, if you’re not willing to tolerate these monsters’ presence, if you want them gone no matter what, then your only option is to stay in the air.

(Of course, you could try to attack them, especially if your plane is equipped with a machine gun. But while you’re busy doing that, no one’s there steering the plane, so you run the risk of crashing. Besides which, it’s a struggle you can never win because there’s an unlimited number of those monsters in the hold.)

“But that is awful!” you may say. “Who wants to live surrounded by a bunch of monsters…”

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you already are:  they’re your fears.

These “monsters” will keep showing up again and again (and again) as soon as you start to take your life in a desired direction; as soon as you start doing things that are important for you — like following your trading plan, for instance, so that you can offer yourself the gift of financial freedom in the future.

Why?

It all stems back to evolution. The mind of our distant ancestors worked according to one overruling imperative: Survival!

How did it manage that? By knowing the environment – the better it knew the terrain and what’s in there then, obviously, the safer it was.

So if one of our distant kin decided to explore a new terrain, his/her mind would go in a state of red alert. “Be careful!” “Watch out, there could be one of those wildcats hiding in the bushes over there… or there might be a crocodile in that lake.”

And thanks to evolution, our modern minds do the exact same thing – only far more extensively.

So, as soon as we begin doing something new; or as soon as we do something that caused us pain in the past (that the mind now perceives as danger), our mind starts warning us: “You might make a mistake and fail, and it will be painful.”

Along with these warnings comes a wide range of thoughts and uncomfortable feelings and sensations in the body. All too often, we let these warnings and their associated symptoms stop us from doing what we have to do in the markets, thus, taking our lives in the direction we really want.

That’s a problem because we’re not seeing through the illusion. Essentially, we’re believing the taunting “monsters.” Whenever they rear their ugly face and try to discourage us, or even control us, we get intimidated and as a result, we’re not landing our plane.

And because we’re not landing the plane, here’s the thing: We’re running out of fuel (time). We’re not stepping outside of our comfort zone because we fear the challenge. We want to stay safe and live, but time is running out.

Okay, so that was the bad news…

Here’s the good news!

If you can understand how the monsters are just for show and if you keep descending towards land no matter how loud the taunting and the threats, you’ll eventually see that many of those monsters will actually give up and leave you alone.

Seriously!

As for the main ones that remain (the generals and champions), after a while, you’ll get used to them. You won’t be bothered by them because you’ll realize that they’re not nearly as scary as they first appeared.

You’ll see that only if you take a good, long look at them.

You’ll see that they’ve been using special effects makeups to make themselves look bigger and more intimidating.

Sure, they’ll still look ugly – they won’t turn into cute lil bunnies – but you won’t find them as frightening as you used to. Actually, some of them will even become your friends.

Like this…

https://www.boredpanda.com/stuff-no-one-told-me-snotm-alex-noriega
Source

 

What’s more, you’ll realize that there’s more to your life than just those monsters and that you always have the choice to steer your plane in whichever direction you want. You just have to make the effort to see through the illusion.

In the Trading psychology Mastery Course, one of my main goals is to help you see through the illusion and the bullshit of your monsters – so that you can see them for what they are and not what they appear to be; so that they no longer have the power to bully you.

Take a few moment to think about the changes this might bring to your trading (not to mention your life) and check out the offer below.

Two Ground Breaking Courses At An Irresistible price 

  • The Trading Psychology Mastery Course
  • The Trading For A Living Course

When you grab the bundle (both courses together), you get 25% off the total price. That's 100$ of savings.

Hope you enjoyed this preview of the Trading Composure Newsletter.

Join a community of 25,000+ traders who understand the importance of trading psychology and are developing their inner edge.

When you opt to receive my newsletter straight into your inbox, you get exclusive content and perspectives that I don't share anywhere else.

Trade With Composure:
Overcome Your Emotions For Consistent Profits

Inspiration, guidance and practical trading psychology tips. Delivered every Saturday morning.

I will never sell your information for any reason; I will never spam you.

Success message!
Warning message!
Error message!