Leave Romance for Love, Trading Needs Practicality
As many of you know, last week I was in Paris where I’ve got the chance to attend to a wedding of a dear friend of mine (you can have a look of some pictures I’ve taken from this beautiful city). It has been an exciting adventure, full of meaningful moments and profound human interactions that once again reminded me the vital importance of enjoying every single emotion that is passing through myself.
To me, one of the most attractive part of the job of a trader is that it can be done literally from anywhere in the world. Given my innate passion about traveling, this one specific peculiarity about trading is still the one that I find exciting the most because it gives me a very high degree of freedom and it keeps my personality always motivated and ready to accept the struggle of grinding and failure we all experience from time to time.
In fact, as I grow up I get the chance to discover more about myself and the journey I’m involved into and I commit to use every single minute that I’ve been given to live and breathe the best possible experiences for me. Does that mean I’m always right and do not make any mistakes?
Absolutely not! It’s quite the contrary instead. Since I’m convinced that the more things you do, the higher probabilities to fail we have but I’m also well aware that this fact shouldn’t discourage anybody from the pursue of the ultimate prosperity. That’s why I’ve always decided to wake up every time I fall and I know that this is what’s making me stronger every time that happens. Because failure is just the other side of the coin of success.
The Goal is Not Becoming Robotic, But Finding the Right Balance
In trading, that’s a different story. The ultimate goal is to always let practicality win over every other kind of emotions. Once all the technical concepts of trading have been refined and are crystal clear, the main job is acquiring the best ability to execute on them on a daily basis. That’s where you don’t need getting involved into emotions too much.
As I’ve written in my previous article here, one trader’s mindset is very different from the investor’s one. So, as traders there is no need to fall in love with an idea but it’s rather much more important to quickly react at what’s happening and to stick to the original plan. It looks easy from the outside but every trader would agree with me about how hard it actually can be.
So, here is my practical advice. If you haven’t done so yet, I’d recommend you to read these two books about the psychology into trading:
- Trade mindfully (by Gary Dayton)
- Trading in the zone (by Mark Douglas)
They can be really helpful in understanding what’s behind the human nature and its natural mindset in a way that some useful techniques explained in these books can be adopted to give one trader’s a substantial edge in performing this activity.
In the end, the overall goal is not becoming robotic in everything we do but rather understanding that the best possible balance in letting emotions go without fighting against them together with a very high sense of practicality in doing what’s needed to be done at the right timing is the ultimate key to success. If you don’t feel there yet, no worries but stay motivated and don’t give up!
“I guess it goes to show that you just never know where life will take you. You search for answers. You wonder what it all means. You stumble, and you soar. And, if you’re lucky, you make it to Paris for a while.” ― Amy Thomas
See you in chat-room.
Trade safe,
Roberto Barbaro