http://www.trade2win.com/boards/psychology/25661-confidence.html
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/gen...8-useful-things-ive-found-net.html#post400810
ANNA ...
Anticipate,
Notice,
Name,
Address.
Anticipate the emotion/feeling (plan for when it will occur and expect it)
Notice (it when it happens)
Name it (and keep naming it ... this moves the processing to your forebrain and away from the emotional fear centres ... recently proven scientifically, old buddhist practice).
Address it. Have a plan for what you will do when you experience the emotion ... emotions are not bad, its what people do when they happen ... maybe do 20 pushups if you feel jittery then come back).
Courtesy of Denise Shull.
"the gap that exists between knowing and understanding
there is risk. This risk is the risk of doubt. This is a very nasty one, because it leads people to ~
try to bridge this gap by jumping. You cannot jump the gap. You have to be on one side or the other. This means thought. Most people are averse to making the effort. The problem is that if the effort is not made and the energy to do it is not mustered from wherever it can be summoned
the consequences can be disastrous, because the least malignant by product is guesswork. The most malignant by products are emotions, greed and fear and envy and hope for starters but there are more
No trader can afford to have these"
May 2003
By Daniel M. Gramza
(This article is an excerpt from Gramza’s book, Trading in the Eye of the Storm, with a few changes interspersed.)
The business of trading can be fertile ground for negative thought choices. If you let them, these negative thought choices can become your demons and sap your positive mental energy. By identifying and understanding the realities of these thought demons, a trader is better able to redirect energy away from them and diffuse their power.
The most common thought choice demon for traders is fear. Traders encounter opportunities for fear on a regular basis. If allowed, fear will confuse and emotionally paralyze a trader.
A fear can feel overwhelming and difficult to handle when it is being consciously or unconsciously experienced. Fear can create the envelope of our reality because it can determine what we do and avoid doing so as not to experience the fear.
Fear is a reaction to a memory of a past experience, which leaves the thought, “I will never do that again.” It can also be the anticipation of an unknown, future event, or a “possible” future outcome. It can range from apprehension to dread. The intensity level of a fear is directly proportional to the amount of energy we choose to feed it.
Thought choices that support fear provide a great example of how we create our reality and what we experience. For example, a trader sees a wonderful trading opportunity but is frozen in fear and does not take it. His fear could be a memory of a past trade that didn’t work, or as protection against a “possible” losing trade and what he perceives will result in emotional pain if the trade does not work. However, what the trader doesn’t realize is that when he was frozen in fear, he was experiencing exactly what he was fearful of – emotional pain at that present moment in time. He was experiencing his fear in the present, not in his anticipated future. His fear was emotional pain, and he is experiencing, consciously or unconsciously, this pain at the moment he was frozen in fear and unable to make the trade.
It is important when sensing fear, to pay attention to breathing. Often, when a person experiences fear he tends to hold his breath or to breathe in short and inefficient shallow gasps of breath. Both of these breathing approaches will increase intensity and heighten his fear and anxiety. Taking slow deep breaths is very important in assisting the trader to control his fear reaction. The deep breathing will allow more oxygen to circulate to the brain and will help the trader stay focused.
Let’s examine and de-energize some of the most common trader fears:
Losing Money
If a trader chooses to be afraid of losing money, there are two things he should consider:
Any time money is used to make money, there is a level of associated risk. The intent of a trading business is to have money make money. Therefore, there is an associated risk of losing money in trading. If the idea of losing money is very uncomfortable for the trader, he should examine this fear. If the trader cannot get beyond this fear, the conclusion may be that he should not be trading.
In any business, not every business decision will make money. This is also true in the trading business. There is a high level of certainty that no matter what trading techniques are used, not every trading business decision will make money. Therefore, by the very nature of the trading business, a trader will have losses. Keep in mind that it is not the profit or loss from one trade that determines the success of a trading business. Rather, it is the total trading profit from a series of trades. Because not every trading decision will make money, the key is having appropriate risk management parameters that do not overexpose trading capital to any one trade. Since the trader never knows with absolute certainty which trades will be profitable, only trades that completely comply with every aspect of the trader’s strategy should be entered. In this way, every trade has an equal chance of being successful.
Lack of Control
A trader who doesn’t understand the difference between the aspects of trading he controls and those he does not is in for a rude awakening. In general, people try to control a situation in order to get what they want or in order to avoid surprises and the experience of a fear. This approach does not work when applied to trading. The trader soon finds out he does not control the market’s behavior. Even a large trader’s influence on the market is only temporary. The fact is, no trader can control the market, and this lack of control can be unsettling for some. A trader may hesitate putting on a trade, or feel that he is out of control and doesn’t know how to take the next step. As a trader, you need to focus on what you do control, instead of what you don’t. As you can see, the aspects of trading you do control far outnumber those you don’t. It is not necessary for the trader to be in control of the market to establish a profitable business.
Failure
Many traders consider failure to be a missed trade or a monetary loss. Fear of failure, as they define it, causes them to hesitate when putting on a trade, or not making the trade at all. Some traders may even take an unproductive trade personally and believe that they are the failure. The fact is, missed trades and monetary losses are part of trading. True failure for a trader is not following his trading game plan. This means not entering a trade or not taking profits or taking losses when required by his trading approach. The trader who chooses to take the results of a trade personally has put energy into the belief that the outcome of a business decision reflects who he is as a person. This is a mistake and deadly for a trader. The good news is that these are all areas you, as a trader, control. It is your acceptance of the risks associated with trading, your understanding that each trade is a business decision and nothing more, and your discipline and consistency in applying your trading strategies that will determine the productivity and success of your business.
Emotional Pain
Instead of taking responsibility for their trades, some traders believe that the market is intent on causing them emotional pain with each losing trade. They forget that no matter what source of information they used to make the trading decision (broker, newspaper, newsletter, hot tip or their trading system), the trade is their responsibility once it is executed. The fact is that the only emotional pain a trader can have is self-inflicted. There is no emotional relationship with the market, except what the trader imagines. The market is an entity that brings buyers and sellers together and that’s it. It does not know that you, as a trader, exist. Nor does it care about who you are, your feelings, your social status or how much money you have. This makes the market your perfect, unbiased trading partner. Taking responsibility for trading decisions and consistently following your trading game plan are key to eliminating the potential for self-inflicted emotional pain.
Missing a Trade
Many traders fear the missed trade. No matter how great the trader thinks the missed trade was, there will always be another trade, just as good, at some point in time. The chance of a trader missing a trade drops dramatically if he is trading in the present moment with an awareness of his markets and consistently following his trading strategy.
Hesitating to Enter a Trade
A trader may hesitate or abandon entering a trade because he senses his own fear. His conscious or unconscious interpretation is, “If I am sensing fear, then I should not be doing this trade.” The bottom-line reason why a trader hesitates is because he is not totally confident in his trading strategy or in himself. He can change this by properly researching and understanding his trading strategy and by practicing the techniques in this book to help increase his confidence.
Stay in a Profitable Trade Too Long and It Becomes a Loser
The major reasons why a trader fears overstaying his welcome in a trade and allowing a profitable trade to become a losing trade are ~
The lack of predetermined profit exit criteria. The trader never determined under what circumstances he would capture profits. Whether it is a change in fundamentals, a magnitude objective or a change in technical analysis parameters, the decision of when to exit a trade must be determined before a trade is entered. Otherwise, the trader runs the risk of letting profits slip through his fingers, as well as providing himself with an excuse to become emotionally involved with trade. The fear that if he exits a profitable trade, the market may continue and he won't capture “all” of the profits. The trader is forgetting that if he establishes parameters for re-entering a trade, he can get back into the trade if the trend continues. He is also forgetting that profitable trading occurs by consistently following his personally researched trading strategy, not by always buying the exact low or selling the exact high of a market. The trader becomes comfortable, lazy and emotionally attached to the trade. He forgets that a trade is a business decision and nothing more. When exit criteria are reached, the trade is exited. Period. There is nothing to think about or discuss.
The trader held the position through other pullbacks, and it eventually continued in a favorable direction. The trader's approach worked because the pullbacks were profit-taking moves and the trend continued in the previous direction. There will be times, however, when the pullback is not profit taking, and the market will change direction. The trader must be prepared for all contingencies. (A profit-taking move occurs when prices temporarily move in the opposite direction of the current trend. For example, a bullish trend is in place, moving prices in an upward direction. A downward bearish countertrend move is caused by sellers who previously bought and were long the market, and now want to take profits. To do this, these traders exit their positions by selling and closing out their previous long positions. If there are enough sell orders from long traders selling to overwhelm the buying orders coming into the market, a bearish countertrend will begin, moving prices downward. This bearish countertrend will sustain this downward movement as long as this profit taking action is in place. Because the cause of the countertrend movement is the profit-taking actions of long traders, the overwhelming sell orders will stop when they finish taking profits. At this point, there is no reason for the countertrend move to continue, and the bullish trend will continue in its original upward direction. The opposite is true when sellers are buying to take profits in a bearish trend.) Greed drives the trader to hold onto the trade. A greedy trader will never be successful because he will never be satisfied with his profits. This trader will over-stay his welcome in the trade because he will want more than the market can give at any point in time. The trader begins to think about how he will spend the trade’s profits and refuses to exit as he sees his spending plan disappear. He forgets that the profit in the trade is not his until he closes the position. The trader steps out of his trading strategy profit exit and begins to hope for more profit than his trading strategy can provide. The trader forgets that his hope is irrelevant to his trade. The price behavior and his trading strategy are his guides, not his hope.
Panicking and Staying in a Losing Trade Too Long
The major reasons why a trader fears panicking and staying in a losing trade too long are in some cases very similar to why he stays in a profitable trade too long and then watches it become a loser. The lack of predetermined risk management loss exit criteria. The trader never determined under what circumstances he would exit a trade with a loss. Just as with the profit exit, whether it is a change in fundamentals, a magnitude objective or a change in technical analysis parameters, a decision of when to exit a trade must be determined before a trade is entered. The worst time to decide when to exit a losing trade is when the losing trade is occurring. If the market is moving quickly or slowly, the trader can become emotionally involved with the trade and frozen in inaction as he sees money being drained from his account. The trader is emotionally involved with the trade and cannot bring himself to take the loss, learn from it and move on to the next trade.
The trader forgets that not all of his trades will make money. He continues to stay in the trade hoping the loss will change to a profit. He forgets that a trade is a business decision and nothing more. When exit criteria are reached, the trade is exited. Period. There is nothing to think about or discuss. The trader thinks exiting the trade will somehow mean that he has been “wrong,” so he continues to hold on to the losing position. The trader forgets that trading has nothing to do with being right or wrong. A trade is either a profitable or unprofitable business decision. Greed drives the trader to hold on to the trade. A greedy trader will never be successful because he will never be satisfied with his profits. The trader steps out of his trading strategy and begins to hope the trade will work. He is not consistently following his trading and risk management strategies and he is setting himself up for disappointment, frustration and inconsistent trading results.
Uncertainty of the Future
Successful traders know that the market can do anything at any time. They realize they cannot predict the future, so they don't waste their time trying. They also understand that the results of each trade are independent of each other. They do not carry emotional baggage from the outcome of profitable or unprofitable past trades. Instead, these traders focus on the opportunity the market is presenting at the present moment, and the application of their trading strategy. If applied correctly over time, the trading strategy will provide them with a profitable result. Being Embarrassed and Losing Face The only embarrassment in trading is what the trader creates. Remember, the market is the ideal, unemotional, non-judgmental, impersonal trading partner.
Some traders, whether on the floor surrounded by other traders or behind a computer screen and talking to a broker, let their egos interfere with running their trading business. They fear embarrassment or losing face and allow their perceptions of what others may or may not be thinking to determine how they manage their trades. Such a trader may not exit a losing trade because he just put the trade on and he feels it would be embarrassing to exit so soon. Instead, he stays in the trade, suffers an even greater loss and exits the trade only when his pain from the loss is greater than his fear of embarrassment. He thinks he has shown them that he's tough, he can take it, and he showed the market who is boss.
This emotional baggage is totally fabricated by the trader. The only thing he has shown is that he is not a very good businessperson, and he has emptied the money from his account trying to prove that he is right. The business of trading is not about being right – it is about making money. His focus should be consistently applying his trading strategy.
Being Wrong
The concept of "being wrong" implies there is a personal connection between a trading decision, which is an impersonal business decision, and the outcome of a trade. It is dangerous to make a personal connection to the outcome of the trade, because it mixes the trader's self worth with an impersonal business outcome. A trade is only a trade. There is no personal connection to the outcome of a trade unless the trader consciously or unconsciously creates one.
The fear of being wrong is further magnified when a trading decision is not productive and the trader takes it personally. He begins to feel that he is incompetent, a bad person or an unworthy person, and he stops trusting himself. The result is that at the next good trading opportunity, the trader hesitates to enter the trade, and an opportunity is missed. The trader then sees the profitable results from the missed trade and, instead of bolstering his confidence in the fact that his trading strategy works, he becomes frustrated and less confident.
This trader is not afraid of the market. He is concerned with his ability to trust himself. Instead of thinking in terms of "right" and "wrong," he can describe the results of his trades as productive or unproductive, profitable or unprofitable, or cooperative or uncooperative. This depersonalizes the trade results and keeps them in the proper perspective.
Summary
As a trader, what fears have you created? We create our fear by using past experiences or anticipating and imagining what the future will hold. We do not control the past or the future. We do control our reaction to the present moment. If we spend our time thinking about what has happened or what may happen, we are not in the present moment and we are not exercising our control over our reaction to the current situation. The result is that our fears become our reality, and this reinforces our fear belief system. Overcoming fear is self-empowering, and it builds confidence to deal with future challenges. Remember, the only limitations you have are the limitations you impose on yourself.
TECHNIQUES TO DEAL WITH FEAR
Samurai warriors were without a doubt some of the fiercest fighters who ever existed. The key to the samurai’s incredible fighting ability was the complete elimination of their fear of death and their complete focus on being in the present moment. They did this by entirely de-energizing their fear of death. If a person in a fighting situation is distracted by thoughts of being hurt or dying, he will be the loser. Samurai warriors were unencumbered by these fears and were courageous in the face of the unknown. In short, they were empowered by a lack of fear, and this allowed them to completely focus, react and stay in the present moment. They fought without hesitation and with complete confidence. This is exactly the mindset of the successful trader.
OK, so you’re not ever going to be a Samurai warrior, but there are still ways to deal with fear and eliminate it from your trading experience.
Face Your Fears
The first step in controlling fear is to face it. If you are not willing to face your fear, then fear, not you, will control your life. When you are afraid, use deep-centered breathing, acknowledge the fear, and face it head-on. Tell yourself, “I am stronger than my fear, I control my fear, and I can overcome my fear.” You will become more comfortable in the presence of a fear by decreasing your sensitivity to it. As you repeatedly face your fear, you will realize that your energy in the fear will decrease. Courage is moving ahead even though you’re afraid. There is a wonderful true story of Ishi, the last living member of a Native American tribe. Ishi and his tribe believed trains were monsters that ate people. One day, Ishi found himself in the position of having to take a journey by train. When he boarded the train, he was asked by a person who understood the beliefs of his tribe how he could even step onto the train. Ishi responded, “Since I was little, I was taught to always be more curious than afraid.” Use fear as an opportunity to learn and progress.
Acceptance of Responsibility
A critical element in dealing with fear is to accept that you alone are responsible for the creation and intensity of your fear. You must realize that you are responsible for your thought choices and the amount of energy you feed them. This recognition alone can put fear in perspective, diminish the energy in the fear and prepare you for the acceptance of new thought choices. Accepting responsibility for your thought choices puts you in control of your fear not the other way around.
Identify the Thought Choice
Our fears are created by our thought choices. In order to eliminate our fears, we must change the thought choices that create them. For example, if a trader fears losing money, he is unconsciously saying to himself, “ I choose to experience the fear of losing money.” That same trader can choose not to feed energy to this fear choice and make a different, conscious choice. He can say, “I choose not to fear losing money, and I accept that losing money is a part of the trading business.” Until you identify your fear thought choice, you cannot change it, and you keep the fear alive. Allow yourself the freedom to make this new choice without judgment. Exercise your positive, conscious thought choice whenever the old fear choice returns. Each time you do this, you drain the energy from the old fear, and you create the change for which you are striving.
Acceptance of Risk
It is very important that the trader completely and honestly accept the risks involved in trading. Trading is a business of percentages. Not every trade will make money. If a trader cannot accept the risk, he cannot fully commit himself to the trade. If he cannot fully commit himself, taking the next trade can be a frightening experience. He will lose confidence and become frustrated and locked in a cycle of fear and doubt.
On the other hand, if the trader has complete acceptance of the risk and all possible results, then he can be optimistic, committed and realistic about the next trade and its outcome. He can now move aside the interference caused by fear and confidently deal with any future outcome.
Eliminate Self-Sabotage
Every trader has a level of comfort and familiarity with trading. To go beyond this level of comfort usually requires taking a risk. This is when fear, as an unconscious act of self-sabotage, can creep in. This fear is actually misguided self-preservation, intended to protect the trader from the fear and anxiety he may experience if he leaves his level of comfort and risks the possibility of things not going his way. A trader may fear that he would suffer embarrassment and personal devastation if he tried his best and failed. Fear as self-sabotage becomes the trader’s excuse to maintain his level of comfort and the status quo. The easiest way to protect himself is not to try. He can also self-sabotage his trading by initiating a trade that does not meet his trading strategy requirements. In this way, if the trade doesn’t work, he can tell himself that it wasn’t his best effort because it wasn’t his main strategy. He unconsciously has protected his comfort zone and his false mental perceptions.
The bottom line with self-sabotage is that the trader is linking his self-worth to trading. If the trader doesn’t meet his own expectations of what being a successful trader means, his self-esteem will suffer. To avoid this blow to his ego, the trader trades carelessly, doesn’t give it his all, and then uses the excuse that he didn’t really fail because he wasn’t really trying. This trader doesn’t realize that a trading decision outcome has nothing to do with his self-worth, but is merely a profitable or unprofitable business decision. The first step in eliminating self-sabotage is to recognize it. The trader must ask himself: Do I select trades that imply illusions of grandeur? Do I select trades with total disregard for my trading strategy? Do I feel that the trade is too much to handle, and I just want to get it over with? A “yes” would indicate poor trade selection and lack of a risk management exit, both of which imply a total disregard for his trading strategy.
Second, the trader must re-center himself with deep breathing and focus on the strict application of his trading strategy.
Reality Check
As a trader, if your greatest fear came true, what is the worst that could happen? Your honest answer can help you examine and deplete the energy of your fear.
Visualization
Visualization is a powerful tool that allows a trader to identify, examine, experience and de-energize a fear. It allows him to mentally envision solutions to his fears in a non-threatening way. Visualization will reduce your anxiety and prepare you if you’re faced with the fear-producing situation again.
Fear Lead Up
It is possible to stop fear before it gets started by identifying the conditions that immediately precede the fear and by changing your reaction to the fear-producing situation. For example, a trader has a solid, well researched trading strategy. The trade entry and profit or loss exit is completely established before the trade is entered. However, once the trade is initiated, the trader watches every little price movement of the market. Eventually, the trader gets emotionally involved with each price move, becomes afraid, and feels a sense of urgency to exit the trade. The result is that the trader exits the trade before either its profit or loss price objective is reached. He never gave his well-researched trading strategy a chance to work for him.
The trader’s lead up to fear was his watching of every movement of the market. In order to de-energize his fear, he changes the fear-producing conditions: once he has entered a trade with the appropriate profit and loss orders in place, he does not continually look at that market. Instead, he periodically checks the trade. This change eliminates the anxiety associated with every price change and gives his trade and his trading strategy an opportunity to actually work for him.
Trading Plan
A solid trading plan is crucial for any trading business. It provides the trader with strategies for trading in any market condition, and a solid foundation for a successful trading business. It also can protect a trader from one of the things that can destroy a trading business, or any business for that matter - the surprise event. A well-planned trading strategy, including capital allocation parameters, and defined entry, exit and risk management criteria will allow the trader to trade without fear, knowing he is prepared for any potential event.
Learn From It. Fear can be an opportunity to learn and progress. Learn from it and move on. Visualize solutions where you calmly and confidently act out the right solutions. This will prepare you and reduce your anxiety if you’re faced with that fear-producing situation again. If you forget about yourself and your fears and completely focus only on what needs to be done, you will neutralize your fears. They will never stop you.
ACT IN SPITE OF FEAR
By T. Harv Eker
The formula for manifestation in our physical universe is known to be "thoughts lead to feelings, which lead to actions, which lead to results." Most people have plenty of thoughts and feelings, but the breakdown for many seems to be the ability to take "action." The culprit, of course, is fear. That is why to succeed in life you must cultivate the trait of courage.
Courage is "taking action is spite of fear." In fact, you can only experience courage in the face of fear. Fear is our greatest obstacle to living happy, peaceful and powerful lives. The true definition of fear is "anticipation of pain." Since anticipation is based in the future and the future only exists in our imagination, fear does not exist in reality. It only lives in our head.
Therefore, it is our own protective mind that prevents us from taking the actions necessary to attain our dreams. As the cartoon character Pogo so appropriately states, "We have met the enemy and he is us."
The protective mind is like an over worried mother; it is constantly creating "doom and gloom" scenarios, trying to scare the heck out of us, in the hopes that we won't try anything new. Its favorite words are "what if." "What if this happens? What if that happens?" Even though none of these things have actually happened, and chances are none of these things will ever happen, this "soap opera" script continues to blare loudly in our head.
Unfortunately, we tend to take this mind trick as gospel and our wonderful ideas of growth and opportunity, become full of uncertainty and doubt. Recognize that our protective mind is not necessarily to be believed; its agenda has nothing to do with making us happy or successful, but only keeping us in a place that is safe, secure and familiar.
Unfortunately many people wait for their fear to subside before taking action. Big mistake! It is not necessary to get rid of fear in order to act. It’s not necessary to “kill” the cobra! The more effective strategy is to learn to "tame" the cobra of fear by acknowledging the feelings and then taking action anyway. Fear itself holds no real power over you. You and you alone give fear its power. If you allow fear to stop you, it will. If you recognize it as the protective part of you, doing it's job (far too well), you can simply say to your mind, "thank you for sharing" and then proceed into action.
Realize that successful people have fear. Successful people have doubts and successful people worry. The only difference between those who succeed and those who don't is that successful people act in spite of their fear, doubt, and worry. So can you!
The darkness of fear begins to disappear in the light of action. Because your protective mind (where fear resides) lives only in the past or future, fear cannot exist in the present moment. Actions, however, only exist in the present moment, meaning that in the midst of focused action, fear dissipates.
The voice of fear is not you. It is only a conditioned "recording" from the past projecting into the future. Once you can recognize that you are the one playing the tape and not the tape itself, you are free!
Ask yourself, "What would I do, if I absolutely knew I could not fail?" The answer will give you a good indication of what you would do and who you would become if you lived based in heart and spirit vs. fear!
