The big achievers in life seem to be the most disciplined of people. This is an illusion, and many ordinary people have made a great success out of trading and business with ordinary levels of the big D.
Success is a short race fueled by enough discipline for the habit to kick in and take over. Practice long enough and the process become routine. The great winners in trading and in life don’t have more discipline than you and I, they just use it better.
The key to trading success is to choose the right habit and bring just enough discipline to establish it. It works in all areas of life, from the gym to executing a simple trading plan.
In my second favorite trading book, Mark Douglas asks the question, “Can discipline be built”?
Of course it can, and it’s quite an easy job to do so. In his book, “Trading in the Zone,” Mark suggests:
Take a simple mechanical trading system (such as detailed in the VectorVest strategy of the week) on May 3th 2014.
Resolve to follow the system for 30 trades without changing the rules.
In short term intraday trading, this is something that I regularly complete. I build discipline very easily but it also means that I can acquire poor habits easily. I have become very aware of this over the years and pay special attention to my diet so as not to take on a habit which could take some shifting.
For many years, I did seminars for retail and institutional traders. I would end the section on trading psychology by saying that you are about 13 trades away from being the trader that you want to be. The journey is a personal trip, and no one else can do it for you. It’s a bit like press ups in the gym. I can show you exactly how to complete the exercise but you have to do your own press ups in the end.
If you can follow the rules perfectly for 13 trades or so, then the habit will become engrained and the big D will no longer be required.
Apply it to exercise and I will see you in the gym at 530 A.M. tomorrow
David Paul
MD, VectorVest UK
David Paul will be giving a free seminar in London on 14th & 31st May 2014. Click here for details.
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