I snipped this from the Twitter page of Alex Hutchinson the author of Endure which is an excellent read for those looking for something different.
The piece in quote marks – “My training will be the same, but my mind will be different” sounds as if it could have almost been written for a trader. Substitute the word training for trading and you have a pretty good explanation of what separates the successful from the unsuccessful. If you are a trend follower or momentum trader then we are all marching to the beat of the same drum. Identifying a trend is not all that hard despite what people say and more importantly what they do.. A few rules to help dampen down the noise helps the cause considerably and these rules are profoundly easy to generate since an uptrend is simply higher highs and high lows – its not rocket science. Yet despite this simplicity people always manage to get in their own way and they do this because their head is not in the game. As an example LB and I reviewed a trading plan last year that was one of the best we had ever seen, clean, clear and concise. Some months later we reviewed what had happened with this particular trader and not a single trade they had taken reflected their plan – it was as if they were taking trades at random with no explanation as to why.
Very little about trading is to do with drawing lines all over a chart and all of it is to do with what goes on between your ears.
Instead of searching for magic tools and that special way of presenting their charts on a screen traders should concentrate on making certain that their thinking is at all times optimal.
