Lesson 17 how to get in the trading zone like an elite athlete. Welcome to Lesson 17 My name is Sam ADA. I'm a global macro Currency Trader and the owner of effects renewed calm. This is the advanced forex course for smart traders. Mark it was it Ari Keefe said complex activities are best performed with only a moderate amount of emotional arousal. to trade effectively, you need to learn to function in a tense unstructured and unpredictable trading environment.
In this type of environment, a lack of focus and decisiveness and a preoccupation with the past or future are all significant impediments to performance. Rather, traders function better when they're in the zone, the state of intense clarity in the present environment from which they emanate confidence. Getting in the zone is not something That magically occurs when your luck isn't. It can be done regularly with proper mental and physical preparation. Like an elite athlete preparing for a gold medal race. Being a top trader requires hard work and the right mental strategies.
Stress management for traders. When you feel anxious or depressed about your trading, it is your thoughts producing a stress response in your body. This is a biological activation of the pituitary and adrenal glands, the thymus, the hypothalamus and the thyroid system. It is a physical reaction to your thoughts in relation to traumatic experiences, such as a previous loss or your perception of a future loss. These bodily triggers cause emotions that can interfere with or worse hijack the decision making process. They are also the enemy of a receptive state of mind.
It's the focus shifts to the stress event. ignores the full spectrum of input that the trader could and should be experiencing. Needless to say, a highly stressed trader is going to have trouble getting into the zone. In fact, stress does not exist. When the trader is totally focused on the moment, stress arises out of thinking about the past or future, both of which do not exist in the now. Goal setting as a performance tool.
Goal setting is a critical management tool used to both direct your creativity and focus in the pursuit of achieving a near term stretch goal. You select the daily, weekly or monthly goal that deep down you believe you can achieve in line with your current methodology and financial resources. You then devise a strategy to achieve this goal. You learn to isolate and pay sharp attention to the most critical elements of achieving your goal and eliminate non core activity. market was it Richard dry House said if you reach high you might just amaze yourself because it is paradox. After the go in a strategy to achieve the goal are established, detachment from the goal becomes necessary.
This is a go serious paradox. Top traders use it as a guide to assess and evaluate the effectiveness of the actions in the now. You want to focus your energy attention and drive on the actions that are critical to the achievement of the goal but not the goal itself. market was it Ray Dalio said I feel like a ninja in a fight. In other words, when it comes at you, it seems like slow motion. Okay, it is what it is because there's a calmness so when there's a calmness, I can deal with it in a better way.
Whereas when there's that anxiety, it all seems so fun. In the list, I am in control. Finding your center. Being able to give yourself to trading in the fullest most present sense for remaining relaxed is the cornerstone mental state for trading. You are in the zone totally focused on the current moment, free from the negativity that arises from past losses or anxiety from a future expectation. The state allows for clarity in the decision making process, non consensus thinking and immediate action during high pressure situations.
This is true of both day traders who are stocking opportunities over the short term and long term traders who are looking for conviction about the positions or new ideas to deploy their capital. Relaxation is the key. tension is the enemy of the trader looking to enter the zone tension gives you blankets that hamper creativity and cause mistakes. In contrast, a relaxed state of mind and what you simply in humbly respond to events. As per your plan is much more effective for trading. There are plenty of techniques that can help you relax, including meditation, contemplation of a phrase or idea, physical relaxation through yoga, and many others.
It will be a matter of personal preference, time and resources as to which method you choose. What's important is not so much the method but the empty minded state that relaxation helps you to achieve. You want your mind quiet and focused on the task at hand. In that state, any tension you feel will dissolve. Mark it was it Iraq, he said. It is a question of being prepared.
Having a game plan having the ability to react to market movements. That is like tennis. You have to know where your racket is and keep your eye on the ball. Maximize the performance by playing intuitively through the preparation work. To use another sporting example, Master cricket batsman Ricky Ponting would say to himself watch the ball as the bowler ran into deliver it. By focusing on this one simple mantra, distraction and preoccupation with his bedding technique with disappear, his training would kick in and he would play the ball on its merits.
The important point here is that punting have appeared himself so well for whatever type of ball was bought at him, that he was able to completely exist in the moment with it. If punting had walked out on the pitch appeared for what was going to come his way. Then no matter how much he focused on the ball, it would not have the skills to handle a cricket ball coming his way. 140 or 50 kilometers an hour. Similarly, if he was over preoccupied with this technique, the hundred rounds he wants to get, or the ducky got last innings. In all the preparation in the world is not going to help them.
It's the same for traders. You need to have done the homework that gives you the conviction in your ideas, to be able to execute them, then have the consciousness not to make emotional mistakes. Mark it wasn't Mark cook said. People ask me all the time, how long do you think it will take for me to succeed? I tell them three to five years of 12 hours a day and losing money. Very few people want to hear that.
Develop mastery of your core trading skills. As a trader, it is a perfect execution of the basic trading skills that will generate your result, not increasingly complex techniques or theories. The markets are simple and the price moves up and down in sometimes dreams. It forms chart patterns based on human psychology in response to fundamental developments in the country. That currency. Practice sizing your positions in line with your conviction, cutting your losses short, bending your profits around and being receptive to the information at the market provides you.
Time spent mastering these basics will be much better than studying Elliot wave theory, Fibonacci levels or other esoteric trading approaches far better to ingrain the basics in your subconscious, so perform them automatically without a moment's hesitation or thought, even during situations that generate extreme levels of stress. No, I'm not saying Elliott Wave etc. are not useful tools for analyzing the market. And I don't want to alienate traders that believe in them. Several good traders I know use these techniques. Just know that you'll get better results by focusing your energy on the more important core skills use visualization and mental rehearsal techniques of perfect practice.
Visualization and mental rehearsal techniques are very useful tools for traders looking to get in the zone. benchtop relates the story of the US Army's top two snipers. Both were incredibly accurate shots, and both believe that mentally rehearsing the performance prior to putting their skills to use on the shooting range, but one sniper in the pier will always outperform the other than shoots. One of the differences if not the core difference between the base shooter and his offsider was the way they visually rehearsed for the event the night before. The second best shooter would visualize himself hitting the bullseye with each shot. In contrast, the top performing shooter will not only visualize himself having the bullseye is he fired a shot by hitting the very center of the bullseye.
He also believed that he needed to practice it entire 1000 ran event in his mind the night before as opposed to Practicing a few times it's a second issue to the traders can use visualization techniques to mentally rehearse both the perfect execution of their trading plan. And their response to a situation where one of their contingency plans needs to come into play. The Tao of forex trading, take a moment and imagine you're relaxed, calm and centered. Where have you detached from your goal? You have a clearly defined plan to achieve your goal and you have all your mental resources at your disposal. Now imagine you are also able to implement your core trading skills unconsciously and automatically without a moment's hesitation.
Imagine you have practice the perfect execution of your plan thousands of times in your mind's eye. Finally, add to that that you've practiced thousands of times what you'll do if one of your contingency plans now needs to be executed, and feel ready for anything that the market might throw at you Hold on to that mental picture and answer this question. How well do you think you would trade? For this week's coursework, you'll develop your routine for peak performance trading. I'll see you in the next lesson.