Do you make the same trading mistakes over and over again and don’t know why? Roll out of bed at 9:15 AM and not do any pre-market prep?
Get stubborn and not cut the loss when you were supposed to? Take profits early because you were afraid of the trade turning into a loser? Getting scared and stopping out prematurely?
Bad habits will always catch up with you. Don’t let market conditions like these fool you.
If these describe any of your trading habits this year, you need to read this carefully.
The Importance of the Correct Trading Habits
Trading is a game where we have to make many important decisions under pressure. Your habits and instincts will make or break your career.
If you don’t have the correct trading habits, you will not consistently be able to make optimal decisions with your capital. Self-improvement is not optional for successful traders.
In order to understand how to change habits, you NEED to understand the process of habit formation and the BEST patterns of behavior to replace them with. Make 2021 the year where you make it your goal to create winning trading habits and destroy losing ones.
No One is Born A Successful Trader
Despite what it may seem like on the internet, no one became a consistently profitable trader overnight. Everything we were taught about how to succeed in the world when we were growing up does not apply to trade. In order to become a successful trader, you have to strive to reprogram your mind and develop new habits in order to succeed.
Who you are when you start out as a new trader is nowhere near disciplined or skilled enough to become a consistently profitable trader. Habit reformation is not optional in this game. This process starts with changing your belief systems.
Develop Winning Belief Systems
One of the first steps to changing habits is accepting winning belief systems, and eliminating losing ones. Let’s start by identifying the LOSING belief systems that are holding you back:
Losing belief systems:
- The market owes me money today because I showed up to the computer
- Everyone else is buying, so it’s safe for me to buy
- It’s not a loss until you sell
- The market is rigged
- I need to make back the money I just lost on the next trade
- I’m a failure because I lost on a trade
- I’m a successful trader because I put on a winning trade
- I need to be right on every trade
Winning belief systems
- The market owes me nothing, I need to prepare to earn my day’s pay
- The crowd is usually wrong, I’m skeptical of the consensus opinion
- Taking small losses is necessary for profitable trading
- The loss was my fault, not anyone else’s
- Wins and losses are randomly distributed, one win or loss doesn’t define you
- No worthwhile result in life comes easy, or overnight
The themes: Winning traders accept responsibility for all their trading outcomes. You have sacrifice short term pleasure for long term success. In trading (and in life), the more responsibility you take for your outcomes, the more you can control and improve them. NEVER blame poor results on anyone or anything besides yourself.
Habit Changes Take Time
Studies show that it takes on average 66 days before a new behavior becomes automatic. Don’t get frustrated when your bad habits don’t immediately go away.
Many of you reading have the issue of obeying stop losses and keeping losers small.
Once you decide to work on eliminating your bad habit of not being able to cut losses, you will not wake up tomorrow with the problem resolved. It takes time and repetition to resolve this issue.
You NEED mentors who have dealt with and conquered these bad habits. Use proven solutions to actively combat these issues.
For this particular bad habit, we recommend traders set a 5 cent stop loss for their next 30 trades. What’s going to happen, is that you’re probably going to get stopped out 30 times. You will get so used to taking a small loss, that it will start to become a habit.
You get used to be taken out of the market with a hard stop, and you will not feel the urge to fight the market. It is a small price to pay in the short term to eliminate a habit that could make it impossible for you to become a profitable trader in the long run.
Our 60-Day Live Trading Boot Camp is two months long so it can help you complete the habit formation process!
Key Take-Aways
Habit reformation is a difficult process, which most fail at. If this were easy, everyone would be rich and successful. Any worthwhile habit is difficult to build. Not just in trading. Exercise routines, study habits, you name it.
Most of the people who set New Year’s resolutions already gave up by now. But if you understand that nothing worthwhile is an overnight process, and you understand the right habits to build, you can ride through the bumps in the road KNOWING that your end goal will give you a better life. Start TODAY.
Join Our Next Live Trading Boot Camp
Habit formation is the focus of our Live Trading Boot Camp. Learn all the day trading and swing trading strategies we’ve been using for 2 decades in our Live Stock Trading Bootcamp. Class starts 2/11!
Click here to join our next Live Trading Boot Camp!
