Trading on Target: How to Cultivate a Winner's State of Mind

BECOMING THE HAPPY MONKEY

An alternative to re-channeling your need to tinker is to become the happy monkey, rather than the unhappy monkey. I proposed this choice to our self-sabotaging trader, Rex. In his mind, Rex had the image of himself as a person who needed to be improving something in order to be happy. What I had Rex do was to create a new image of himself in his mind.

The new picture was of a person who had accomplished the tinkering in the past, but now had permission to follow his rules. This picture comes with the understanding that there is a prize out there for following his rules. That prize is that he will be the person who adds value when he has mastered his technique and can use his intuition as a new filter. Having permission to use intuition in his trading is a treasure, indeed, because it allows Rex the ability to use his mind again in a way that is constantly challenging and new each time. However, he cannot use the intuition filter unless he has mastered his technique and mastered his own psychology.

When Rex became bored following his trading rules, he began to anticipate signals or second guess them. As a result, he entered trades too soon, got out of them too soon, and, generally, mucked up his trading system. A system that was making a certain amount of money was suddenly only achieving half of that return. Once Rex saw himself in a different light, as a person who had already done the necessary tinkering, but who had permission to follow his rules so ...