“Mental Fitness for Traders” Series - Article 5

Are You The Turtle Or The Hare?

by Norman Hallett, former CTA/Trader

What would you rather have the perfect trading system or the perfect soul-mate?

Don’t answer that out loud! 

I would venture to say that most traders are so “into” their trading that they would hesitate and ponder that question.

By the way, the answer is the perfect soul-mate. That’s because there is no perfect trading system.

The perfect trading system is the right system for YOU.

Let’s assess.

Are you the Impatient Type?

Let me stress here that by impatient, I mean that you don’t like the notion of waiting more than, say, a day, to see your trade results.

You use logic like “I don’t like to stay in a trade overnight, because that’s where the risk is…anything can happen in these crazy times.”  Or…

“My signals are just as valid with a 60 second chart as they are with a weekly chart and I’d rather be able to keep adjusting.”

These things that you say to yourself (valid or not) come from your inner-self trying to move you to comfort.

Are you the Position-Trade Type?

You say, “The market can be controlled short-term, but eventually the fundamentals come home to roost.” Or…

”I’m not looking to eat up my capital in transactional costs. As far as I’m concerned, the trend is your friend and I’ll stick with a trade.”

Are you the Where The Action Is Type?

You tend to think, “A signal is a signal, whether it’s on a 2-minute chart or a monthly.  When my signal sets up, I GO!”  You add, “Sometimes I don’t even know which (stock/commodity/currency) I’m looking at.”

“That really doesn’t matter to me. I just care about the technical pattern.”

I won’t bore you with more types, because they are unlimited. In my coaching of traders for years, these above types were the predominant ones.

There is no right and wrong type.

There is only assessing which type you are comfortable with perceiving yourself as and then committing to a trading system that reflects that type. 

There are plenty of winning trading system, of all types, that can be very successful. The best way to have a good system work for you is if you can follow it’s signals without hesitation.

You are more likely to follow your trading signals if the system “agrees with you.”  Now look inside yourself.  Then commit to following what your tested system tells you to do!

You must win the BATTLE WITHIN YOURSELF first, before you can win in the markets.

**Norman Hallett spent 21 years as a successful trader and CTA before starting Subconscious Training Corporation. His company developed TradingMind Software, the industries leading mental/emotional training tool for traders who understand the importance of being disciplined and focused in their trading.