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Persistence: The Pathway to Trading Success
A couple of weeks ago one of my students, we’ll call him Kevin, emailed me to share some of his progress. He was quite excited because he had turned a corner in his personal progress. He said that he had been keyed into a number of my lessons on meditation, hypnosis and creating your own audio files, which had helped him considerably.
In these lessons I had suggested that the students make a recording of my hypnosis session from a live XLT class using Audacity.com (a free recording software) to help them achieve trading success. He went on to follow my instructions and mix this recording in a continuous loop with another sound file (of theta beats, music and ocean waves) that he bought off the internet called “Deep Theta.” He went on to use it for several months as part of his meditation routine without any noticeable change in his internal or external experience. Then one day he had a profound experience of deep relaxation that was entirely new. Additionally, he made some changes in a couple of decisions which afforded him a personal accomplishment; where the context had been so similar to the suggestions in his audio file that it followed that the outcome was attributed to his use of the audio file. He also shared that he had turned the corner on his Forex trading; another desirable and expected outcome of the lesson activities. For the 1st year and a half, he wrote that he would tell people “I couldn’t trade Forex “, but now he reports that this has changed.
These steps towards trading success greatly intrigued him and he surmised that they were due to his persistence in the use of the file month after month. He actually told me that he is a very persistent person that doesn’t require immediate results and if he stays the course he deeply believes that trading success, or whatever the goal may be, is highly probable. He went on to wonder out-loud with me that as we learn to reprogram our unconscious minds, if we begin to unconsciously dial into the things we need in conscious life. He asked if “luck” or interesting coincidences began to increase as a consequence of persistence. He also asked if it was his persistence in using all of the tools that he learned in “Mastering the Mental Game” that allowed him to open the door for his unconscious mind to direct him toward the good things that are necessary to achieve success as a trader, and as a person. Well, at that point I commended Kevin for his very astute interpretation of what was happening. It is my professional opinion that as we “seed” the unconscious with suggestions, special exercises and reprogramming tools in earnest and create consistency in the mastery of these powerful techniques, that the unconscious begins to set us up to create the desired reality in our trading and in our everyday world. Or, in the opposite case, our unconscious sets us up for making manifest the limiting, irrational and negative beliefs of doom and gloom thoughts and mind movies that lurk in the unconscious as well. Either way we are always creating our reality.
Persistence and perseverance are two extremely powerful and necessary sides of the trading coin. Too often traders will embark on a path of training their brain/minds only to abandon the intention or drop the strategy ball, or just plain give up and go back to the same tired, lame trading process; and of course they will experience the same tired, lame results. It is imperative to step-by-step move methodically and deliberately to design your trading thoughts, emotions and behaviors. Of course, it takes time and energy to achieve trading success. In fact, one of the definitions of trading is that trading is about energy management. Developing and maintaining a sense of urgency around the minutia will, one trade at a time, take you to a high probability of success.
So put the time in. See it as your mission and purpose to erect a standard of excellence in your trading and set your sights on the long haul.
Trading is not a place to blindly risk your hard earned money; it is a place to express yourself. This is what we teach in Mastering the Mental Game online and on-location courses. Ask your Online Trading Academy representative for more information. Also, get my book, From Pain to Profit: Secrets of the Peak Performance Trader.
Happy Trading
Dr. Woody Johnson – wjohnson@tradingacademy.com
