Trading is not always about making money and full of endless opportunities every day. If you have ever been trading in stock market, you might understand how important discipline is. In trading, you need to develop a strict emotional discipline to get over the emotional trauma of fear and greed. In today’s blog we are going to show you how to become 10x disciplined in your everyday trading, so let’s get started!
You can learn multiple trading strategies, in fact you already know it, but if you are failed to become disciplined in your trading, you will struggle making money in trading. Learning how to be more disciplined in trading is a trait and every trader need to learn this.
It is not like we do not want to be disciplined, but the moment we sit on our screen, our discipline often runs out. I believe this is the part of your training and learning curve. It is not about forcing yourself to follow your rules in order to be disciplined trader, but about being a calm and composed trader, who understands this
There are 4 simple steps to lead you to a more disciplined way of trading. Interestingly, if you take time to apply the principle of balance in your life, you will find yourself more successful, happier and profitable trader.
Sounds good!!
Keep reading!!
Know your goal as a trader
In our life, there are multiple areas where we are interested in. We have our family, friends, personal life, job/business, along with our trading (I am assuming you are not a full-time trader yet). Everything demands our time, from the 24 hours that we get every day. More trading requires more time and definitely that is going to be taken from the other areas of our life. Also, the high screen time creates mesh in our mind and unnecessary conflicts in other areas of our life too. These distractions finally result into trading losses and consequently hampering our other areas of life too.
So, the first thing is to understand the theory of balance in your life and try to implement it. To become more disciplined in trading primarily you need to understand what you want from trading. Knowing what you want from trading can easily indicate how much you can get/lose every day. And fortunately, this goanna help you create a fixed amount of time to put for trading. Once you are able to decide how much time and energy you are ready to put into your trading, it allows you to categorise the area of your life that you care about in turn, giving you a sense of fulfilment.
Identify a Suitable Market Timing
Indian market rarely trends throughout the day, i.e., the most volatile hours are the initial one-hour trading session and the last 1 hour before the closing. So, I don’t think you would be interested in wasting your time in a range-bound market
Identify a suitable time, i.e., a maximum of one hour to trade in. Make up your mind such that if I found any opportunity in that time window then I would be trading otherwise I am out of the market.
Creating a routine will allow you to be more productive in your everyday life because rather than aimlessly trading throughout the day, with no clear objectives, you can follow a set of rules that you create yourself to achieve true happiness and success.
The best part about having a time bound trading is that you will trade less, consequently less stress and happier life. Dramatically less trading gives you better results. Who would want to trade mindlessly throughout the day in a choppy market condition? You need to find the balance between trading and your other job. For example, allocating time to do trades from 9:15 AM to 10:30 AM and then focusing on other aspect of day-to-day life.
Journal your emotions
Trading is difficult only because of extreme emotional involvement. The moment we enter into a trade, the running P&L (MTM) status creates mess. You need to remove temptations and distractions to become more disciplined but mistakes are always bound to happen.
Rather than giving up and reverting back to your old way of life, you should forgive yourself. Forgiving yourself gives you the opportunity to keep going and allows you to learn more about your strengths and weaknesses. Never give up on improving yourself. If we all gave up when things proved difficult, we would never be able to grow!
To be more disciplined I keep a journal and write everything that comes into my mind while trading. After a significant amount of time (weekly, monthly) I analyze that journal. Interestingly, you will be amazed by knowing that, before repeating a mistake, your mind process similar mental framework every time. Just try to identify that pattern, and when the similar mental situation arises, just take a pause from trading and resume after a while.
My 5 Min Pause Strategy
To improve the trade accuracy, i use my secrete “5 min pause strategy”, that helps me understand the price action better and increases the probability of success. Basically, before initiating any trade ( Intraday, swing, or investment decision) i use to prepare my self for the trade and watch the chart in different time frames ( Just to be double sure that i am not missing any important information). It keeps me calm and composed while trading, and eliminates any possibility of FOMO. It also saves me from getting caught in failed breakouts in intraday trading. Now you might be thinking, what if i miss the good trades while following this 5 min pause strategy? . Remember,you need to change this mental framework. Market gives endless opportunity and also if a trend is really strong then it is not going to end in just 5 min.