An amateur and a professional trader can look at the same price charts and see completely different things.
The difference is not as simple as the professional having a better strategy, but rather that they have superior mental models and belief systems.
They see the market in ways that the new trader cannot yet comprehend.
A lot of my writing has been with the intent of helping shift the way you view markets and price movement.
A key goal with the YTC Price Action Trader was to help you see this trading game in a superior way; playing the metagame rather than the usual pattern-based game that most play.
- Seeing the charts from the perspective of “traders making trading decisions” rather than just as somewhat random price movement.
- Feeling the hope and fear within the other traders; especially at the point where they get trapped in a low probability position.
- And using this information to profit from their loss.
The obvious section to reference is the whole of Chapter Two, but the concept underlies all the material which follows through chapters three to six.
Much of the content in the YTC article archives has also been devoted to helping you see things in new ways.
Such as the following:
- Changing your relationship with loss through accepting it as a normal part of the business. See here for example: https://yourtradingcoach.com/trader/you-wont-be-successful-until-youre-ok-with-losing/
- Driving your growth and development through results from a longer series of trades rather individual trade wins or losses. See here for example: https://yourtradingcoach.com/trading-business/its-time-to-fight-to-get-to-the-next-level/
- And so much more. This is probably a good starting point if you haven’t seen it already: https://yourtradingcoach.com/other/what-makes-yourtradingcoach-com-different-to-other-trading-educators/
So let’s see if you can bring about your own paradigm-shift!
I’d like you to consider the idea that maybe your next improvement in results will not come from a new system, or some new knowledge, but rather from changing perspective and learning to see some particular aspect of this business in a new way.
It’s not easy. You can’t force new insights. They typically come at unexpected times.
And they often need a trigger to shift your perspective and open up a whole new world of possibilities.
The good news… there is one method that can help provide this trigger… assuming you do have the required foundation of knowledge and experience.
Schedule some time to question your beliefs and assumptions.
You may find they’re quite valid. But you may also find a new way forward.
You may find that something you held to be true, is perhaps not 100% certain.
Time spent questioning your beliefs or your assumptions, is NEVER time wasted.
Consider the following areas of your trading business:
- Your understanding of how and why price moves.
- Your understanding of how and why you expect to profit from price movement.
- Your reasons for market and instrument selection.
- Your personal routines for achieving and maintaining a peak performance state.
- Your routines for pre-session preparation.
- Your method of position sizing.
- Your method of assessing market conditions and selecting appropriate tactics for those conditions.
- Your method for rapid recognition of a change in market conditions and adjustment of tactics to suit the changes.
- Your method for real-time contextual reading of market bias.
- Your method of identifying trade opportunity.
- Your method of entry.
- Your method of risk management.
- Your method of trade management.
- Your method of trade exit.
- Your routines for post-session review.
- Your routines for longer-term review… and the way you use this to drive further growth and development.
- Your routines for ongoing personal and professional development.
For each of these areas of your business, question your beliefs:
- What are your beliefs about this aspect of your business?
- Why do you have this belief?
- Is there evidence to support this belief?
- Is there evidence which suggests that it’s wrong? Or incomplete?
- Is it possible that this belief is only valid in a certain context? Only in particular times, or places on the chart, rather than being an always 100% certainty?
- Imagine a professional trader who has mastered this aspect of the business. Are they likely to operate with the same belief? If not, what would they have to believe in order to operate more effectively?
- Can you adopt this new belief? What can you do to test this new belief for validity? What actions can you take on a regular basis to reinforce this new belief and instil it into your daily habits and routines?
Time spent questioning your beliefs or your assumptions, is NEVER time wasted.
Schedule some time this weekend to question your beliefs.
All the best,
Lance Beggs
PS. YTC Price Action Traders: If you need a new way to “question” price movement at the hard right edge of the screen, try the questions listed in section 3.9, on page 209 of Volume 2.