We all know that before placing our money in trading operations it is convenient to practice with a demo account. That is the time to start getting familiar with the broker’s platform.
The demo account helps us to test the application of those famous indicators that we have conceptualized and observe for ourselves the price variations through the candles that we also learned in theory.
A demo account can prepare you to measure results, and if you work with discipline you will soon feel ready to be profitable, but…
What happens when the available amount shown in the account is your real money?
Right there is when you must be prepared with certain abilities and mental strengths that are not acquired by operating in demo.
Above all, you need to be prepared with sufficient knowledge of the markets, but you cannot forget about the mental aspect. Psychology plays a fundamental role so that you do not fall into traps and become a victim, at times, of your own fears or overconfidence.
Table of Contents
7 keys to master your mind in trading
1. Learn to manage self-control
Those of us who make a living from trading spend more time analyzing than trading, away from the BUY and SELL button. This practice is very healthy because it reinforces the habit of self-control. You will have more time to cool off from the euphoria of a successful day, or use that same time to analyze whether adverse results are due to unpredictable market behavior or whether you need to refine your strategy.
2. Operate without fear of failure
At first it may be unavoidable to feel it but you must remember that you are in a world of probabilities and that you may or may not be victorious in an operation. For this it is important that you do not allocate a committed money that you will not need.
Failures are necessary, they are part of your training so that you evaluate options for improvement.
Risk management strategies can help you mitigate those nerves, keep your plan disciplined.
3. Learn to feel the market
Instead of listening to what is said about the market, we must put our mental faculties to work to feel it.
Rumors can tempt you to follow trends that do not meet your operating strategy, sometimes we must be more technical than fundamental.
4. Educate your mind to unlearn and relearn
The brain functions as a manager of our resources as it takes care of many functions that we are not consciously aware of. Any action that generates an energy expenditure our brain will try to save it, especially if the resource that we must use in that action is vitally necessary for the proper functioning of the body.
Now, when we enter a learning process we spend oxygen and glucose. These two elements are essential for survival because cells feed on them, so if we have already made the effort to learn something, when that changes or is updated and we must re-educate ourselves about it, we are going to face a normal physiological resistance of the organism.
We must do this exchange of oxygen and glucose to arm ourselves with important, valuable and up-to-date knowledge, then our commitment will be to compensate for the wear and tear with a good diet and appropriate rest.
5. Don’t take what the market does personally
There are millions of people who make life in the stock markets, if at some point you enter a bad streak you should not, under any circumstances, feel that the market has something against you.
You have to stop talking to the chart and begging the price to go up or down. Once you open the trade, you only have control over the management of the exit point, which can be taking profits or assuming a controlled loss.
6. Control panic
Among our basic emotions is panic, this is activated in stressful situations and can lead us to make hasty decisions.
In trading, an effective way to control panic is to project the possible negative consequences of a trade that we have open, or the consequences of a decision that we are about to make, it is generally less catastrophic than we imagine. In addition, if you are working with good capital management you should not fall into the hands of panic, on the contrary, learn to detect when there is panic in the market so that you take advantage of the massive flight of people who are scared and close their positions at the same time.
7. Master the euphoria and anxiety
In the markets, one of the most important aspects is to learn to know the behavior of the price, when we have spent many hours viewing charts and testing indicators, we can predict, with a good mathematical probability of success, where the price will go.
Now, taking into account that there are a huge number of non-professionals who influence the price, if we are good observers we will also notice that they come and go in droves influenced by euphoria and anxiety.
The market moves by feelings and, if you want to trade well, you must be more structured than sentimental.
In addition, being aware that anxiety can lead us to get out of our strategy leads us to pay special attention to recognize those peaks of anxiety in ourselves and keep it at bay.
Finally, if you want freedom and integral well-being, you should not sacrifice your emotional stability in it. In this way you would be a hostage to mental traps and, therefore, freedom would not be present either.
You should relax from time to time, do activities that give you pleasure and disconnect, even at times from the markets.
Probably wanna read: