As a day trader, your perception of the world around you has a way of affecting the way you trade. Forex trading is an activity, a science and an art that requires your full mental concentration and alertness. You cannot afford to get it wrong; the price you pay for the mistakes you make during trade sessions is quite exorbitant.
If you are an online day trader who trades from the confines of his home. There is always a tendency to feel being cut off from the real world. When this happens, most traders become psychologically traumatized. They fail to realize the truth that their ability to succeed as a retail trader greatly depends on their state of minds. Having a stable mentality and an appropriate mindset is very essential and vital to your success as a trader.
Your ability to manage your emotions appropriately, can greatly amplify your chances of succeeding as a retail trader. The reason being that, in forex the decisions you make need to be devoid of all forms of sentiments. When you allow sentiment to becloud your sense of reasoning, your thought patterns becomes very unstable and you ability to make sound decisions is greatly affected.
Your mindset is one of the greatest tools that you have at your disposal as a trader. If properly utilized the reward is mind blowing. If you want to succeed as a retail trader, I would advice that you should learn how not to let your emotions control you. Your decisions should never be based on what you think or how you feel; rather they should be based on what you know to be more accurate.
Apart from affecting your line of thought, a psychologically unstable mindset can affect your sense of judgment, and rob you of your calm, when your mind is anxious and unstable; you lose your cool and concentration. You become agitated. An anxious and unstable mind lives on perception rather than on reality. It feeds and breeds on the thought of what could be. Rather than what is obtainable.
In addition, another psychological factor that can also affect your trade is mood swing. If you are a trader, who switches mood frequently, your trade portfolio is at risk, because our moods have a large impact on the way we make decisions.
There are no psychological means of controlling your mindset. All of the psychological jargons that are published over the years have failed because humans are spontaneous animals, our thought patterns and mind set can change at any time without any form of notification. However, I would advice that you should avoid trading if you know that you do not have the right mindset. Not trading is the best way to reserve your capital, particularly when you are not mentally stable. Go for some fresh air, do some exercise or something you really enjoy before get back to your trading screen. You can also find some meditation programs out there that might work for you. You will find a pattern that suits you better. You need to work on shortening the ‘down times’. It’s not easy, but it’s possible. You just need to work at it.
Author Resource:
Chloe Miller recommends http://www.acutrading.com AcuTrading system to help you to reduce your stress over daytrading.