Best Mind Hacks for Better Trading

Do you ever ask yourself who’s in control, you or your brain?

The mind is a powerful tool. It's there to work for you, but more often than not people listen and work for the brain.

In this Webinar, Navin identifies certain mind hacking techniques that help you take back control of your brain and make it work for to you.

Then you can see how to make this work for your trading...

The Importance of Emotions for Trading

Let's talk about emotions. Yes, emotions... feelings. Whether you like it or not they play an important role in your trading success.

We aren’t interested in ‘WHY’ the emotions happen, we want to identify ‘WHEN’ they happen and 'WHAT' to do.

Emotions cause sudden reactions. Sudden reactions come from an unusual activity. (Please check out Navins ‘unusual activity’ at 12:20 in the webinar...lol).

Unusual activity in the market can cause people to react suddenly,  the reality is you should be patient and react later. 

But we just have this fear, the fear of missing out...

Controlling FOMO

We all get FOMO.

“I need to enter now or else I’m going to miss this trade"...

"I need to buy Bitcoin because it keeps rising in value"...

We don’t need to understand why we get this fear (to do that would be a long and depressing journey) but by understanding WHEN we get this fear of missing out we can use it to as a weapon.

When do you get this feeling?

Or better, when does the market create FOMO in other people so that you can take advantage of it?

“Greed for lack of a better word is good”.

Except when it affects your happiness.

Picture this:

You are in a buy. It's working.

You go from $100 to $150 to $179, and then it's flickering around $183-$184.

Then you start the negotiation - with yourself.

We want $200, a good round number. But the $184 trade drops to $162 - now you start to renegotiate with yourself.

You say "give me $184 again and I’ll close".

Drops to $150 - again you renegotiate "give me $160".

The reason for this renegotiation with yourself is because you feel you didn’t make the right decision.

If you feel you didn’t make the right decision it means that you failed in your pre-analysis.

You still walk away with $50 profit, you should be happy right?

You try to tell yourself you’re happy but inside you are thinking ‘I could’ve had more’.

Greed is affecting your happiness.

You’re not happy after winning and you’re certainly not happy when you lose so at what point does your mind think that trading is good for you?

Your brain is wondering "why should I keep doing this?"

Identify the Moment

The key to all of these situations is being able to pinpoint the gap when your mind starts to wander or to change.

That moment when you get FOMO or when you start to renegotiate with yourself.

The more you can identify and realize this gap, the better you can control it and the bigger it gets. This leaves more empty space in your mind. If you bring that empty space to trading you will notice phenomenal changes to your trading.

Meditation can help you clear your mind and get better control of your emotions.

The next hack is one that we have been taught since we were young, yet we still don’t always do it right.

Goals!

Setting goals are extremely important, but the mistake we make is by not making them specific. If you don’t know what you want then how do you chase it?

The deeper you go into your goal the quicker you can achieve it. You need a SMART goal.

Specific - Measurable - Assignable - Realistic - Time based.

Once you have this goal you can work backward to understand what you need to do to achieve it.

The last mind hack is about MONEY...

Why is there such a negative perception of money?

"Money is the root of all evil"

"Money doesn’t make you happy"

These are the subconscious messages we have about money, yet consciously we are trying to make money.

How can you make money if your mind doesn’t line up and say ‘Let's do this’.

Don't feel bad about making money and don't let anyone else make you think it's bad. Money doesn't change you, only you can change you.

Remember these mantras:

1. The market has endless possibilities/opportunities

You don’t need to chase or milk that one trade, there will be more.

2. Have I done at least 30 minutes of analysis before taking that trade?

This 30 minutes analysis will build your confidence and stop you re-negotiating with yourself.

3. If I have a few losses in a row - take a break

If you lose 3 trades in a row it's time to take a break. Go do something else. Or, if you’re in profit at the start of the day and you lose 20% of your profits - you are done for the day. 20% is the cutoff point. Take the profits you made and come back tomorrow.

Keep, not earn.

Did you find this helpful? Want some more?

If you wish to attend the next LIVE webinar, enter your email address below and we'll look forward to seeing you there :)

Let us know your trading mantras in the comment section below:)

With Pip Love,

Garry at Urban Forex