Trading is work. Once you get good at it, it can be very enjoyable, just as playing professional sports, or being a professional musician must be, but long before it gets to the point of really enjoying yourself at it, it is work. Long before you click that mouse and enter a live trade you are going to have to put long hours in reading and re-reading your text books, and viewing and reviewing your course material, and depending on where you live, waking up at 2 or 3AM to practice trading the London session. And like any job you are going to have good days and bad days, particularly in your first couple of years, and you will go into slumps where you even doubt yourself and this dream of being a successful trader. What will carry you through these times is your work ethic. If you cannot get out of bed and prepare yourself mentally to trade after a losing day, then you are nearly assured of hanging on to the pain and confusion of earlier losses longer. If you are a professional and you understand that any business has expenses, and risk, and liability, and you fully understand that if you showed up for work unprepared, late, or even not at all, that you would assuredly fail, then you are in a better position to succeed. The key is when your feet hit the floor after waking up, you have got to have a routine.
The key to waking up refreshed and feeling good is going to bed happy. Phyllis Diller the great American comedian used to say, “Don’t ever go to bed mad…stay up and fight”. The second part of that statement may be a punch-line but there is great wisdom in the first line. It is extremely important for you to address issues in your life which cause you doubt or stress. These can prove to be powerful distractions which can cause everything from problems in your relationships to health problems. Anything that causes you to lose focus can be detrimental to your trading. And of course a good night sleep is very important for maintaining a positive state. A lot of us don’t get enough oxygen while we sleep due to snoring or some form of sleep apnea. Not only can this can cause you to actually be tired upon awakening but cause you to have a low attention span and lack of focus for the first hours of the day, which is a very dangerous thing for a trader. The easiest cure for this is any number of anti-snoring, over the counter, mouth pieces available to help you to breath deeper in your sleep insuring you get a steady flow of oxygen into your blood stream. This is a very important consideration. Also obvious detractors such as alcohol or caffeine should be eliminated from your routine during the trading week. You have to ask yourself: “Am I a professional, or not?” If you don’t have the discipline to pass up obvious vices which can disrupt your sleep pattern, or cause you to lose focus for your job at hand, than you are not ready to display the discipline and patience it takes to trade. On the trading floors it was not uncommon for traders to stand in the pit for 6-hours straight with no break when there was volume in the market.
It is also a good idea to not roll right out of bed and onto the trading screen. Make it your routine to shower, dress, and go for a short walk outside before sitting down in front of the screen. During your walk you want to imagine seeing perfect set-ups on the screen, with structure cradling price, then giving a signal, and the momentum following through in the direction of the higher time frame price pattern after you’ve taken the trade. You also want to practice taking deep breaths and breathing from your diaphragm, and be thankful for everything you have, especially for this new, great day! Once you do sit down in front of the screens do not go right to your day-trade charts. You want to start out on the monthly and weekly charts, record the pertinent information into a checklist or spreadsheet, and work your way down to the lower time frames. You never want to jump right into something when you can ease yourself into it. A routine you follow everyday is going to play a big part in your trading day and also serve as an important reminder that you are a disciplined professional!
Jay Norris is the author of Mastering the Currency Market, McGraw-Hill, 2009 and a Trading Instructor at Trading-U.com and a Senior Market Strategist with BrewerFX in Chicago. To see details of Trading-U’s available course work go to Trading Course To schedule a complimentary, interactive tutorial with Jay on determining market direction and hear more about “Live Market Exercise” go to One on One Tutorial
DISCLAIMER: Forex (off-exchange foreign currency futures and options or FX) trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor. Risks include the potential that changing political/economic conditions may substantially affect the price/liquidity of a currency. Investors may lose all or more than their original investments.
source : trading-u.com
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