What Builds Confidence in Trading?

Last week in a free private webinar for my course members, I asked a key question about what builds confidence in trading.

Trading is without a doubt, an endeavor you need confidence in. Having a confidence that you can do this will be a fuel when you need it, clear obstacles when you face them, and provide a focus on what is essential. Confidence will accelerate your learning curve.

On the flip side, lacking confidence can be one of the most destructive traits for a traders mindset. When losses come, how will you re-bound and focus? What happens if you start your day with two, three, or four losses? Will you doubt your system, trading plan or skill set?
All eyes can see, lacking confidence is destructive, while having confidence gives us a greater chance for success. Although we know this conceptually, or intellectually, often times our actions tell a different story.

So how do we build confidence in trading? What can we do create an unshakable belief in our abilities? If we engage specific things, will they help us form a foundation to profit consistently?

The answer is yes, you can, without a doubt build confidence in yourself and your abilities. In this article, I am going to share a method to help you build confidence. Will it be enough? I don’t know, but it’s a great place to start.

Successful Endeavors

I am very proactive in protecting my mental capital and self-image. Having a strong self-image and a healthy reserve of mental capital will lead to increased performance.

With that being said, what do you think it does to remember your past successful endeavors? Do you think it builds up your confidence, or brings it down? The question is rhetorical, but I want you to begin thinking about this more deeply.

I’ve worked with thousands of traders over the years, and one common trait among most of them, is they are all good at something. Chess, poker, math, sports, finance – you name it, they are likely good at something.

In our courses, we have well over 50 doctors, many of them surgeons. We have poker pro’s and tournament champions who are wanting to transition into trading. I have a few traders on the NYSE or for some large prop desk while others are high profile trial lawyers. Engineers, programmers, IT specialists….we have them all and the list goes on.

As a whole, most students who want to learn forex trading are intelligent, probably successful in their current field, and likely good at some skill. So how do we leverage this to build confidence?

A Method

One simple method you can use is to think about what you are already good at. Think about what you went through to get there, the obstacles you overcame, the doubts you faced, the hurdles you passed, how many times you weren’t sure you could be good at it. Yet in spite of all that, you became highly skilled at it.

Notice the confidence you feel to perform that skill or endeavor. Did you always feel that same way as you did now, particularly in the beginning? Unlikely. But you got there, and now have a competent level of skill in it, whether it be a skill, sport, job, martial art, musical instrument, work or endeavor. This current experience and skill can (and should) be used for our trading process.

Hence, take some time to think about deeply what skills or traits you can do well. Think about it till it brings up a feeling of confidence to engage that activity and do it well. Remember this feeling and apply this towards trading.

Climbing Mountains

It is important to remember, all of you at some point in your lives have broken through obstacles, difficulties, and gone past your doubts. Maybe these were small, or maybe they were mountains, but every one of them we’ve climbed reminds us of how far we’ve come, and what we’ve overcome along the way.

As I said, before, ‘Overcoming is the Currency of Success.‘

Remembering this, and having contact with our past successful experiences will help you build confidence in yourself. This is another method for protecting your mental capital and keeping a strong self-image.

Hence, take some time to remember all the obstacles you’ve overcome along the way. This should give you a feeling that you can overcome your inner obstacles to trading successfully.

In Summary

Having confidence and a strong self-image are two of the most essential weapons for a successful trading mindset. Most, if not all of you, have had to overcome something in your life. And equally most are already good at some skill, sport or work.

Think about your developed skill set in any particular field, and what you can do with those skills. Think about what obstacles you had to overcome throughout your life. Notice how it makes you feel about yourself when you think of what you can do, and what you’ve grown past along the way.

Sometimes, we need to just remember our strengths, inner resources, and wisdom we’ve acquired along the way. Sometimes just noticing those things will remind us of our capacity, and our potential. This is just one method you can use to build up confidence in trading.

It should be noted, there are other crucial methods you can be engaging daily to build an unbreakable bedrock of confidence. Take some time to ask yourself what builds confidence in trading for you.

Please make sure to share your ideas on this, how it helps, and any comments you have regarding this article.