Powerful Trading Habits Can Significantly Boost Your Success

Hi, Brian McAvoy with Inside Out Trading. And today we're going to take a look at habits and developing successful habits. I mean, habits really are insanely powerful, especially as a trader trading being such a mental activity, habits are huge. The other thing that's really crucial about, I mean, there's tons of good quotes about habits, but it's one of them that I really like because it's so true, especially applied to trading. FM Alexander, his quote was, people do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures. And I would love that because it is so true. I mean, if you think about it, you know, as traders, we're decision makers. We're making decisions all the time. As far as our trading, trading, it's a decision making process. We're taking in information, evaluating it in certain criteria and making, drawing conclusions, making decisions, taking action. That's what trading is. It's a mental activity of making a lot of decisions. And a lot of things are habitual decisions. If you think about it as you go, if you, seriously, if you think about it as you go through the day, just your normal life, nothing special kind of days, you're literally making thousands of decisions as you go through the day. What you're going to do in any given moment, as you're going from one room to another, as you go from one place to another, what am I going to eat, what am I going to do? And you have different thoughts that trigger certain things that come up. You got to make a decision about that. And so over the course of a day, you're literally making thousands, thousands of decisions. But what we don't realize is so many of them are habitual decisions. We don't realize we're making decisions, but we are. And so, and I heard the perspective a while back. I want to say it was, I remember the guy's name, did a lifebook. But anyway, he was saying that as if you're wanting to affect a change in your life. The big decisions, sure, those matter. But what really matters are the thousands of tiny decisions that we're making as we go through our days. And I learned back then it's like, yeah, that was a big wake up call. Because it's true, the, the thousands of little decisions that we make really have more impact on your day and your life than the big decisions. I mean, the big decisions do count, no doubt, but the thousands, little decisions as far as what carries the momentum and that kind of stuff and really dictates how your days go and how your trading Goes, I mean, even if we just kind of bring it back to the context of trading, take a look at some of your habits. What is your habit before you even start trading? What is your preparation? Do you have a preparatory routine where you define what's going to happen in a very specific set of circumstances? Back when I was studying performance psychology many years ago, it was back in the 80s and I'd done this tape set from Nightingale Connor. Yeah, cassette tape. I'm dating myself. But anyway, the whole course was on performance psychology. And one of the things that I really liked about it was the guy talked about having a grounding routine. And for traders it's absolutely critical as far as a good healthy habit. As far as having a grounding routine or a routine, you want to have routines and habitual practices like for starting your day, evening routine, it's huge. Not too long ago, Alex Hermosa, he was saying most people don't need a wake up alarm. What you need is a go to bed alarm. Because how you sleep and how you feel in the morning is really going to be dictated by when you went to bed and what kind of condition when you went to bed. And do you have an evening routine? If you have a good evening routine, well, that's going to affect how well you sleep and how you feel when you get up and how you feel when you get up, that's going to dictate your day or largely influence it. And so everywhere you can instill habits or place very specific, very intentional, proactive habits or routines that can be very helpful as far as the habitual things that happen that are happening unconsciously or just strictly out of habit. So what are some of the habits that we get into as traders? Well, some of the habits we get into as traders is maybe listening to CNBC or reading a certain news release or the squawk box or newsletter or whatever. Maybe that's one of the habits and maybe it's helpful, maybe it's not. It's good to look at that. But if that's a habitual thing that we're doing, maybe it's. If you're trading the 1 minute, 5 minute charts, you're day trading and your longest trade is three hours. Don't worry about studying the daily charts. What's been happening over the last however many weeks doesn't matter. It's not relevant. But if you're doing that, you can be biasing yourself against what's happening today. My favorite metaphor to use is it's like, hey, you know, if your wife's been a great mood for the last 30 days, but she's mad at you today. Probably ought to pay attention to the fact she's mad at you today. And markets are the same way. If your focus is right now and your trading window to get in and out of the markets is very small and it's bearish right now, who cares if it's been bullish for the last nine years? Doesn't matter if it's bearish right now. You better pay attention to the fact that it's bearish right now. And so again, kind of a habitual thing, Are we constantly looking for confirmation? Is that a habit that you're into? And you know, you just, no matter what the setup is looking like or your entry or the exit, if you're constantly looking for confirmation that you're not going to scrub this time, but you're overdoing it, is that a habit? A lot of times we have mental habits and emotional habits where we say something and yeah, we'll get mad and we're just kind of responding habitually to different triggers and things in our environment or in our day or that we see on a chart or hearing the news. And so really it's just really good to pay attention to and raise your self awareness to okay, as I go through my day, where's my attention going? What am I paying attention to? What am I noticing? How am I responding, how am I talking to myself? But just generally raise your awareness. What you really want to do especially is see if you can identify habits that you have that are counterproductive because the first step in addressing them is becoming aware of them. So really one of the best habits you can put in place is to just be mindful to be self aware. Again, aware of what you're doing, how you're feeling, how you're thinking, what you're saying to yourself, your emotional state, all that kind of stuff. Just raise your general awareness to yourself as you go through your day. And especially while you're in your trading, just that, being mindful of yourself and observing yourself again, raising your self awareness, that will serve you tremendously well in making your trading. Better being, becoming a better trader, responding less out of emotion and out of habit and doing things more consciously, which is what you want to do. So again, as far as habits, some of the things you can do, you can create habits. Call them routines if you want, but they're habits. Physical fitness is a habit, Eating well is a habit. You might start it off a specific exercise regime, certain specific diet all that kind of stuff. And then you stay after it and you stay with it until it becomes a habit. And then it just, you just do it. Because that's how things are now and that's what you want to do with your trading. So establish a good evening routine, establish a good sleep routine, a good morning routine. So you're waking up, you're starting your day well, and that's your starting point. But do it intentionally. Come up with a routine that works for you. I mean, for some people, you know, it's yeah, man, got meander over to the coffee machine, give myself a good shot, you know, shot of caffeine to kick the day off. Other people it's like, no, put on my shoes, I'm going jogging. Whatever works for you for, to start off your day. Whatever's going to start your day off. Well, same thing. When you're, when you're sitting down to start your trading, do you take a look at your habits when you're starting your trading? What do you have around you, the order that you're opening things up in as far as opening your charts and getting things set up? Are you habitual about it or is it kind of random when you're looking at your charts, the way you're responding, Are you journaling as you go along? Are you keeping good notes? Are you following your system and your strategy? So again, just like I said, just observe yourself for a while and notice the habits that you already have. Take note of which ones are good habits so that you can reinforce them. Take a note of the habits that are not supportive of good profitable trading so that you can address them. I know this is kind of a general talk, really. Like I said, the main thing, if you take nothing out of this, the main takeaway out of this is raise your self awareness. That right there will serve you as well as anything. Probably in trading is just raising your self awareness. Because when you raise your self awareness, you're going to become all the unconscious things that you're doing. You're going to start seeing the things that maybe previously you weren't seeing. Like, wow, yeah, you know, I'm trying to do this and I just, man, I'm not as good at it as I'd like to be. Maybe I need to get some help. Cool. At least you're becoming aware of it now instead of just struggling and not really knowing what's going on. So the last thing you want to do is just get caught up in such a routine, get so habitual about everything and that they're not healthy habits where you just, you're repeating that after day, week after week, month after month, year after year of trading that is not satisfying. You want to have satisfying, profitable, fun trading. And so if you're not there, pay attention to what's going on so that you can again address, you know, identify, become aware of, identify and address the issues that are holding you back. Now if you'd like some help talking this through, swing by Inside Out Trading.com we can have a conversation about what's going on in your trading. Maybe I can help you identify some of the areas where. Yeah, you could use some help where to get that help and get you past the things that are holding you back, things that are taking the fun and profit out of trading for you right now. Seriously, just go to Inside out trading dot com. Nope, nope. Over here. It's always fun when I'm looking at my computer and I gotta figure out where this is. Anyway, swingmyinsideouttrading.com book a call with me. There's a link at the top of the page. Just book a call with Brian. Click the link, book a call with me. Let's get on, let's get on a zoom call like this. We'll talk about what's going on with your trading, how to get you past it. If you found this video helpful, give me a like and a subscribe down below. Let YouTube know. Yeah, this is the decent video to be put in front of people if you like this kind of stuff. How to become a successful trader, you know, not just talking more strategies, we're making a billion dollars or all the normal hype that you're hearing. If you want to learn about being a good trader, this is what this channel is about. So subscribe to the channel. If you have friends who trade, share it with them. If you got leave me a comment down below, a question, whatever. I do, read the comments. So again, I hope this has been helpful. Talk to you soon. Cheers.