Improving your trading, golf and other efforts

I’ve been using a new method for improving my trading over the last couple of weeks. It’s not a new indicator or a new system, it’s a simple method for improving the mental part of your trading. I borrowed it from a non-trading related book which actually focuses on golf called: Zen Golf: Mastering the Mental Game. There are many good ideas in this book and I’ve not read it completely yet but this method was something I saw has potential and implemented right away. So how does it work? The premise behind it is that you can recognise mistakes you’re going to make slightly before you make them and therefore you can avoid making them. This is achieved by creating a list of mistakes or bad habits you want to get rid of. I went through several months of trading notes and wrote down 22 types mistakes or habits I wanted to change. After you’ve done that, you go back to trading as normal but every time you make a mistake, if it’s on your list you mark a box next to it, if it’s not on your list add it. That’s it. No need to beat yourself about it or linger over it too much, just note it and move on. The effect this had on me was:

1. I became much more aware of which mistakes I was making and the need to avoid them
2. It helped me focus on what I actually do need to do instead of the mistakes
I think somehow subconciously your mind starts to recognise, ‘oh oh here comes a mistake which I’m going to have to note down.. ‘ and then you change your course of action to avoid that.

That’s it. It didn’t reduce my mistakes to zero yet but it certainly helped.

Incoming search terms for the article:

• trading golf

Other possibly related posts:

• Friday
• Friday’s trade
• Trade