Ignoring our personal motives is just about the most dificult task life can give us. From breathing to peeing, from having sex to committing murder, it is all about personal motives. Now i don't care why you breathe, pee, fuck or kill, but i do care why you open a trade, because i promised to teach about trading.
Motives to lignore
In my humble opinion key to succes is data. With embracing data as key, we have to rule out all other input that is not data. I mean stupid things like: "this position feels good" or "I think price will go down", or even "If all goes well, price will go down". If you want to make a steady profit, do not take the road of instincts, feelings or believe. There is only one path to the big pile of money: data.
Subjective data
All data that we retrieve from our own mind, is subjective. We take part in that data, and so our wishes, dreams and fears are a part of that data.
If you are considering opening a position, you collect data from the chart, but also from your experience. You make a decision based on lines you see, but also on the hopes you have, on the targets you want to make, on trades that went realy well, and on the fails you had earlier.
Experience in what we do and how we do it (our acts) is very important in trading. But experience in what we thought, felt, feared and hoped (our motives), must be ignored in trading. So:
Let's get practical with this
In order to set these thoughts to work, we make a trading diary. The easiest way to do that, is by making a spreadsheet. In that spreadsheet you have to put checkmarks before opening a position. Checkmarks like:
The diary is a way of learning from your mistakes. But mainly it prevents you from doing things on subjective motives in stead of non-subjective motives. If you like, i can share an Excel-template for this.
While playing and testing and experimenting with forex, do take the time to contemplate on your state of mind when opening or closing a position. Do not belittle your feelings, as they do learn you where you might fail. So use the diary.
Motives to lignore
In my humble opinion key to succes is data. With embracing data as key, we have to rule out all other input that is not data. I mean stupid things like: "this position feels good" or "I think price will go down", or even "If all goes well, price will go down". If you want to make a steady profit, do not take the road of instincts, feelings or believe. There is only one path to the big pile of money: data.
As promised in my blog Leetching of other peoples hope, i will try to give hope back to those who are so close to winning, but keep losing. Maybe reading How to learn trading is a good idea as well.
Subjective data
All data that we retrieve from our own mind, is subjective. We take part in that data, and so our wishes, dreams and fears are a part of that data.
If you are considering opening a position, you collect data from the chart, but also from your experience. You make a decision based on lines you see, but also on the hopes you have, on the targets you want to make, on trades that went realy well, and on the fails you had earlier.
Experience in what we do and how we do it (our acts) is very important in trading. But experience in what we thought, felt, feared and hoped (our motives), must be ignored in trading. So:
- We have to put our experience of acts into trading models that we can rely on. You may call this a strategy.
- We have to put our personal motives into rules that we must abide by, before setting up a position.
Let's get practical with this
In order to set these thoughts to work, we make a trading diary. The easiest way to do that, is by making a spreadsheet. In that spreadsheet you have to put checkmarks before opening a position. Checkmarks like:
- checked the economic calendar
- draw the support and resistance lines in the charts
- checked Pivot, ADR and MACD.
- State of mind – eager, stable, doubt – what ever you find applicable.
The diary is a way of learning from your mistakes. But mainly it prevents you from doing things on subjective motives in stead of non-subjective motives. If you like, i can share an Excel-template for this.
While playing and testing and experimenting with forex, do take the time to contemplate on your state of mind when opening or closing a position. Do not belittle your feelings, as they do learn you where you might fail. So use the diary.