Have you ever tried to ride a bike that had wheels that were out of alignment? It is not a pretty site. Once when I was on a century ride for the last 30 miles I felt a strong tug, which made me feel as though I were in a head wind. I had to work twice as hard to go half as fast. It was very difficult to say the least. When I reached the end of the ride I noticed that I had broken a spoke. This meant that the wheel had become out of alignment and looked like a wobbly noodle. As a result, the wheel had been rubbing on the brakes almost constantly which caused me to work against myself. This is what happens when you are out of alignment in your trading. You begin to work against your own best interests as your internal conflict rages causing you to become confused, frustrated, angry and fragmented, to name a few. This is not a good prescription for properly planning and executing your plan as you trade. And, your trades are so serious that you’ll want to have all your mindset cylinders “rockin” as you enter and exit trade set-ups. So, part of the point illuminates the fact that your mental/emotional system is immensely critical to this process of alignment along lines of body, mind, and spirit so that you are going in the same direction with your preparation and training taking you to ever higher heights of trading while you execute your trade strictly according to your plans.
Being in alignment with yourself can also be described as thinking, feeling and doing in a way that resonates with the reality of the charts and optimizes all of your internal and external resources. It is supporting yourself through states of mind that have a confidence based on competence; it is founded on a belief system that maximizes supportive positive beliefs and minimizes limiting beliefs that may still be in your unconscious. Being in alignment also means that you are aimed to be and remain in the “now” of the trade because you are necessarily reducing the available attention in your mind when you allow yourself to become distracted and fragmented. Becoming distracted and fragmented are negative in and of themselves; but when you are in the trading process these negatives compound your deficits and exacerbate any ill thoughts or feelings that you might be experiencing. No doubt you have noticed when you were out of alignment and out of the trader zone in a trade where you became highly conflicted about what would be the best thing to do versus what your ego was telling you. That ego-voice might have been telling you, “Don’t mind that plan, you can move that stop if you want to!” Another indication that you are out of alignment is when your values become challenges; for instance, instead of “keeping commitments and promises,” you seem to become tolerant of rule violations and other lapses of judgment.
When you think, feel, say, and do in a way that is congruent–meaning that you have internal and external consistency, perceived by others as sincerity or authenticity–then you are in alignment. It can also be termed an ‘intra-rapport’, moving in tandem with self, in sync and balanced, centered and grounded. You can also be described as having integrity and ‘walking… Continue Reading
