4 Ways to Improve Your Trading
Why do some traders you know seem to profit consistently, while those green trading days elude you? Why do you find yourself consistently making the same mistakes over and over again?
Traders who are successful month in-month out, handle losses in stride. They are comfortable with losing periods, while maintaining discipline. And most certainly, they do not accept under-performance, constantly training to improve their game.
The good news is – you can be a successful trader who profits month in-month out. Nobody is born to be a successful trader. These traits and characteristics can be learned.
Many of my profitable students, were not trained in any related field of finance. Yet they consistently make money.
Trading profitably is certainly possible for you, no matter where you are in your learning curve. But you have to work at it, and likely make a few adjustments from what you are already doing.
Here are 4 ways to drastically improve your forex trading.
1. Maintaining Commitment, Even During Challenging Periods
Throughout your learning curve in forex trading, the actions needed to get you there will not always be fun.
You have to love the process, and enjoy working towards your goals every day, regardless of the daily results.
If you were not being paid to trade, would you still love it, and enjoy the challenge? If so, you will maintain the commitment necessary to succeed.
2. Get Comfortable With Losses, and Losing Periods
How many emails have I received requesting a system with a high win rate? Enough to fill your inbox for a year.
By itself, the win rate does not guarantee profitability. Your risk of ruin does!
But I’m going to make a controversial statement here. That is:
Most un-successful traders who want a high win rate, are really asking for ‘compensation’.
What are they wanting compensation for? A lack of confidence. It is wanting something solid, yet virtually nothing is solid about trading.
Obsessing over a high winning percentage is short sighted. Directing your focus to continually getting better (i.e. on the process), is seeing the forest from the trees.
3. Intentions Must Be Consistent With Actions & Beliefs
If your goals, intentions & efforts in trading haven’t produced consistent results, there is likely one cause. You!
It is one thing to say or think, ‘I want to be a successful & consistent trader‘. But if the moment comes to fill in your trading journal, and you balk, then there is inconsistency between your conscious and unconscious mind.
Just like you may conceptually say ‘I want to be wealthy‘, but if you look around your house, and feel poor, you are not going to create wealth for yourself.
This is called ‘thinking in one way, and feeling another‘. Only when these two (thinking and feeling) come together in your mindset, do you produce results that match your intentions.
4. Ban Under-performance in Trading
What is one thing which without fail promotes under-performance? Excuses. Have you ever used excuses for your results in trading? If so, you are making it more probable you will under-perform.
The best way to ban under-performance in trading, is to ban excuses. Adopt a ‘no-excuses‘ approach to trading. Better yet – burn the following mantra in your brain:
I am responsible
You may not be in control of everything that happens in the market, but you are responsible for your performance.
In Closing
Ask yourself, how of the aforementioned forex trading tips and advice suggestions would help you in your trading performance? If you were to adopt the above suggestions, would they change your mindset and approach to trading?
Will definitely take all 4 of these things to heart here. Never heard of the idea of ‘banning underperformance’. Great concept mate.
Marca
Hello Marca,
Am glad you liked the article. Am wanting people to see their trading and mindset in a different way, so they can see how their thinking and limiting beliefs affects their performance.
Kind Regards,
Chris Capre
“You may not be in control of everything that happens in the market, but you are responsible for your performance. ”
Great point… I wrote it down in my diary.
Hm, and food for my thoughts at #2 as well, about the win%. I am currently in the middle of backtesting of one of your breakout strategy , I am very happy with the results, the system suits me amazingly well and provides me with nice return %. But of course, I am trying to squeeze it more and get better and better win% , but as you said, that is not what it is about. It is good to realise it, so thanks for that.
Hola Petra,
Yes, a very similar quote to this is;
“You cannot control the waves or the sea, but you can adjust the sail.”
Regarding your backtesting, you’ve done a really good job thoroughly testing for yourself the system you like, and seeing how it profits consistently.
In terms of squeezing it more, there is nothing wrong with searching for other ways to optimize the method. Just don’t squeeze it too much, or it will lose its overall edge and applicability.
There is such a thing as ‘over-optimizing’ or ‘curve-fitting’, which you need to avoid.
But glad you’ve come to this place as your trading has been improving immensely as of late.
Kind Regards,
Chris Capre
Thank you Chris for kind words and all your support. You are right, I need to be careful with “over-optimizing” , as I have a tendency to over-analyse everything. But backtests and lately my live trading have started to show, that hopefully I am on the right track… anyway, I am loving the learning process .
Thanks for another great article Chris.
I got my AHA moment when I realized what You have said many times “You have to love the process”.
I think the key is to Focus our energy on the process and execution rather than the results (or Goals).
Hi Chris
Thanks for the article
Like You and petra quoted:
You cannot control the waves or the sea, but you can adjust the sail.”
“You may not be in control of everything that happens in the market, but you are responsible for your performance.
These are the first mindset that I am trying to grind into the brain.
Thanks for being there as always to guide us
Health first and then pips
regards
sahaj
Fantastic article Chris. Enjoying having you as a forex mentor. Just recently joined your course, & wanted to say your community is great with some really knowledgeable & successful traders.
Feel like I have all I need to be a successful trader.
Thank you for sharing with us such great knowledge, & really giving your time to help us become better.
I hope others read this & join.
Hello Chris, are you ”The Secret” fan or follower? I found out that most of your words about trading mindset are compliance to ”The Secret” theory.
Hello Winson,
I’ve actually talked about this before, but I’m not really a fan of that text. I think what they said in there is not new but old, and is useful, but not sufficient by itself. If it was, we’d all be better traders and richer than we are, but most are not.
In actuality, the techniques I talk about are a combination of massive action, mindset, constructive thinking, and neuroscience.
You are welcome to watch a video where I explain this in further detail, and how it’s different from the secret in many ways here:
Trading and The Laws of Abundance
Hope this helps.
Kind Regards,
Chris Capre
Thanks for another great article Chris.
The words ”This is called ‘thinking in one way, and feeling another‘. Only when these two (thinking and feeling) come together in your mindset, do you produce results that match your intentions.” is a great great point. That is exactly what we should gonna to do as a trader.