The Greatest Trading Book – Ever!

The art of self control

It’s hard enough to know what the market is going to do; if you don’t know what you are going to do, the game is lost. – Alexander Elder, The New Trading for a Living.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, studies by Stanford University demonstrated that being patient and exercising self-control are important factors in our success and happiness. The researchers performed tests in delayed gratification by giving children a choice between an immediate reward like a marshmallow, cookie, or pretzel or waiting for 15 minutes and getting two rewards.

 

Stanford researchers found that children who were able to wait and not eat the initial treat and receive the additional reward, went on to be more successful in life. They had higher SAT scores, better educational achievement, and lower body mass index scores. This study shows the power of impulse control. If you pass on immediate gratification and exercise self-control, you will likely experience a larger reward in the future.

 

For traders, this equates to letting a winner run rather than cutting a winner short for no reason. Giving up the small win gives you a larger win later in a trending market. This principle can also apply to taking a small loss when you are proven wrong, even if you don’t want to. Most traders don’t want to take a loss and make it real because they want to give it a chance to recover. The downside is that you can get caught on the wrong side of a market, and end up with a huge loss. Self-control means doing what you need to do, even when you don’t want to do it.

 

The inability to control our impulses and need for immediate gratification can lead to violence and addiction, and is the undoing of many people. In trading, the lack of impulse control makes traders take large positions in a desperate attempt to get back big losses, or spend money and time on someone who promises to give them the secret of wealth creation. The impulse to get rich quickly is usually followed by the disappointment of losing a lot of money. Making money in the financial markets comes from researching and following a detailed trading plan and system.

 

The ability to control your impulse to get rich quick, gives you the discipline and focus to study the markets when you would rather be doing something else. The hours of education required to be a successful trader are long and hard. There are many more exciting things that a trader could be doing on a Friday night instead of reading about entry signals. But dedicating time to your trading studies is necessary to your successful career, and it will make you a better and more disciplined trader.

You need to save enough to accumulate a good sized trading account.(for starting learning minimun 20k) – for becoming fulltime 5-10L ) Saving is a lot less fun than taking vacations or buying expensive new cars. For some, this is not an issue. They either have self-control naturally, or they were raised by parents who taught them delayed gratification. For others, this will be the most difficult part of their trading journey. The simple fact is that you must have a trading account with enough money to trade comfortably, both mentally and financially. And unless you receive a windfall, you will need to earn and save your trading capital.

 

The best way to help yourself control your impulses is by having clearly defined goals and a vision of what you want your future to look like. When you experience an overwhelming desire to do something that could be detrimental to your plan, you can look at it through the filter of whether it’s moving you toward your goals or away from them. This technique will help you find a space in your thoughts between your impulses and your long term goals. It will keep you from following the wrong path and jeopardizing the big picture.

 

When impulses aren’t controlled, people trade their goals and future gains for their immediate desires. This is a terrible trade. The best way to implement impulse control as a trader is to have a clear set of goals and a detailed trading plan that you follow religiously. In the financial markets, money is transferred from those who can’t control their impulses to those who can.

Exercise

Create a detailed life plan. Just like your trading plan, it should expound on your goals and how you will reach them.

Ask yourself these questions:

Where do you want to be in the next five, ten, twenty, and fifty years?

-What age do you want to retire?

-Where do you want to live when you retire?

-How do you envision helping those around you?

-Do you want to own a home or travel the world?

-What do you see yourself doing every day?

Create a folder on your computer and store images that go along with your ideas. Do you want to retire on the beach?

Find beautiful sunset pictures or real estate listings. Start researching travel destinations and save your research. Turn your dreams into goals and work towards them every day.Look at the car you dream of before falling sleep and work your ass of when you wake up , KEEP HUSTLING AND TRADING