One of the reoccurring themes of my blog is that you need to focus on what the market is doing and make the correct decisions based on this information. I like to simplify things down to their lowest form so I fervently believe that it is my ability to concentrate my attention on what I see whether it be the nuances or obvious signals and then act on it. However it occurs to me that a thing as simple as this concept, can be difficult or impossible to learn if you don't know how to train yourself.
In previous posts I've touched on how top level athletes or musicians practice their respective crafts until their skills are ingrained into their muscles. They don't know how to make a bad play. We traders can strive to attain the same level. Ours is not a physical game but a mental one. So the events we have to train for come our way in the form of patterns and price information. After you spend enough time watching the markets and seeing how they move and you can think in probabilities so that the probabilities are proven correct more often than not, then you will find the missing piece to becoming a successful trader lies in mental focus.
Having a positive mental attitude should be foremost in your mind. You need to believe 100% in your skills and your system. These two things work together to let you achieve your goals.
Training yourself to concentrate is at the root of all of this. Concentration is the ability to have control of your thoughts and think on a subject until you decide not to. Being able to filter out unwanted and useless thoughts is a hallmark of a strong mind. In a previous post I suggested to close your eyes and visualize an apple, it's colour, texture, shape and every detail that makes it unique. Can you do this for 5 seconds, 30 seconds or 1 minute before any other type of thought enters into your mind? Concentration and focus let you exclude all non important information to attaining your goals.
Let's take this a step further and follow a program for training the mind to concentrate.
First off it's going to take the desire to want to put the work in and develop your hidden strengths. If your goal is to be a consistently successful trader then you must want to put in the hard work and effort required. Some work must be done every day so that you can advance closer to your goal.
Write down your goal twenty times a day. Then say it out loud to yourself. This turns a thought into a real and tangible thing. Work every day trains the mind and builds the necessary mental pathways.
So start your visualization with a simple object that is in your trading space. Computer speakers, scissors, a pen or a calculator for instance. I’ll use the scissors in front of me as an example. I can see the following, they have two holes and a curved, tapered, finger rest, grey plastic handle, steel blades 4 “ in length with a bevel edge, a rivet makes the pivot point, a reflection from the window lights up the upper plastic surface particularly in the finger holes, there is a horizontal line where the moulds joined when it was manufactured. Now if I close my eyes for 10 seconds and think about this image, I let no unrelated thoughts enter my mind. Concentrate and draw every detail in my mind. Open my eyes and compare my mental image with the actual object. Critique myself honestly. Was I right in remembering all the details? More importantly, did any non scissor related thoughts enter into my mind?
Now you choose an object try it.
The goal of this exercise is to begin to train your concentration skills. Focus your mental powers on one item at a time. Block out unwanted thoughts and distractions.
Do an exercise like this for 30 minutes a day. Pick different but simple objects. Leave your eyes open and stare at your keys for 1 minute. Can you do this without any other thoughts but the keys for that length of time? If not, do the exercise again and again until you can.
This is just like practicing your golf swing except it’s your brain that’s being trained.
If you’re not used to it, you’ll experience fatigue of a different sort because it’s new to you.
This experience can be directly applied to your trading and your results will improve.
Once you can immerse yourself into the market flow, you can get much more in tuned to the market machinations. You can feel the buy and sell pressure. The momentum. Confidence will increase. Good results beget better ones. You can finally take advantage of the infinite possibilities the market offers up every day. Your system can be put into play and followed without deviation. The power of your will to take the necessary steps in order to meet your expectations is waiting to be used if your desire to succeed is strong. Be your own harshest critic. Did I focus? If not,why not? What steps can I do so that I can.
I listen to chill out music http://www.oemradio.org/ through headphones when I trade. I’ve come to think that this helps me a great deal to concentrate. I believe that the constant rhythms distract some part of my brain and give it data to process without an end. This I think frees up my attention to focus on the visual data I’m getting from the stock charts. Recently when the music feed was dead for 2 days I didn’t have my normal trading days. If you don’t like the music they play, then find something else without commercials or singing as they will distract you.
In the coming days I will post further information on keeping your focus
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