It was a cause for celebration, though to the casual unaware observer there didn’t seem to be much to be happy about. But Saundra knew better. Yes, the trade was stopped out for a small loss and there had been a number of them. In the past Saundra would have all but freaked out while telling herself that she wasn’t very good at trading as her confidence would drop like a barrel over Niagara Falls. That was before when she was overly consumed by thoughts of making profit on each trade rather than thinking about what mattered most in the trading process. That was before when she would succumb to impulsive urges prompted by fear and greed that were driven by doom and gloom thinking causing her to do things like move her stops or other rule violations. That was before she finally got it that having a macro trade plan and explicit follow-through were critically essential. In other words, that was before Saundra had become convinced that consistent success in trading was not as much about winning in any one trade but more about process mastery. Process mastery is identifying a high probability trade based upon a proven strategy, having an effective behavioral routine established, using a feedback process to measure, verify and document the veracity of the strategy and habituating that system in order to develop capacity for skill building. She didn’t realize it at the time but once the light bulb turned on for her she began to recognize the importance of what she had learned, which was, you must put all of your thought focus on what matters most, otherwise you are fragmenting your energy and efforts all of which are required by the trading process.
The Internal Data tools and concepts (those that help you to think, feel and do in your best interests) used by consistently successful traders don’t really vary that much. … Continue Reading
