Tips To Trade More Consistently - On Decision-Making

Hi, Brian McAvoy here. And today we're going to talk about really kind of what it means to be human, what it means to be a trader, and in a regard that you probably haven't thought about or heard about in a long time. But this is really, really important, I mean, because this kind of goes to the very essence of who you are and what you're doing, especially with regards to your trading, but also in your personal life. A lot of people talk about, you know, do we have free will? A lot of people, you know, carrying on about the way our society has changed over years. We don't really have as much freedom as we used to. And there's an element of truth to that now. The flip side of it is how much have we really just abdicated, though? As far as our freedom? We just plain, we don't take control of it. And where this comes into play with your trading. I find it an interesting question to reflect on every now and then, just for fun, because the answers aren't always the same. But as far as the question of what are you? Number not who are you? But what are you? Of course it's easy to say, well, you know, I'm a human being, you know, I have this body or you know, I'm a spiritual being, whatever. But in one regard, you know, your body, it's just your form, your physical form, it's just the container that you're riding around in right now. No, as far as what you are, and here's what I'm talking about, this again, it applies directly to trading. You're a decision making machine. All day long, every day, every waking moment, you're making decisions. Now, most of them, you're making the same decision you made last time by default. Here's kind of what I'm talking about. When you get up every day, the alarm goes off, you decide, okay, I get up with the alarm and you get up with the alarm. And that's what you decide to do. And that's what you do. You go through your routine. And even as you're going through your routine, you're constantly making the decision to continue to follow the routine. And here's kind of an extreme situation, but this again, kind of puts it in perspective. And a lot of people have experienced this, whether it's with a job or marriage or whatever. One day my wife and I were having a conversation about this kind of stuff and I said, you know, it's kind of interesting because every day we make the decision to stay married. You never know Maybe one day the day will come when we make the decision to not be married anymore. And we make that same decision every day. All day. Every day. I mean, it's not just at the beginning of the day. We make decisions all day long. As far as pursuing your trading, trading is a decision making process. You ask people, what is trading? Well, it's buying and selling securities. No, it's a decision making activity. You take in information, you evaluate it against certain criteria, and you make decisions based on that evaluation and that information and then you act on those decisions. But it's a decision making activity. And if you think about it, most things that we do as a human, unless you're just being robotic about it, requires thinking. Well, what is thinking? It's processing information and making decisions. It's not just taking in information, it's what you do with that information and what you do with that information. You evaluate it, you make decisions, you make judgments. So this is why it's so cool. But again, you need to understand there's a whole lot of decisions that are made by default. And there's a whole lot of things that were kind of conditioned to be that way. I mean, just in, you know, our society and the way everything, you know is very structured and routine and it's done for us, so to speak, within a job, within the school system, then a lot of things within our society, there's a whole lot of systems in place, a whole lot of rules, you know, for behavior and conduct, protocols, all that kind of stuff that are there for us. Instead of deciding, you know, what makes sense for me as a person and what do I want to challenge. Now as a trader, you, you've already demonstrated that you're willing to make the decision to step outside the norm and pursue something a little different. That's cool. But even again, within your trading, if you've been at it for a long time, you jumped into it, you had whatever kind of a start you had, and after a while it's just kind of not so great. But it's not really making any headway. You're just kind of surviving along, or maybe you're making progress, but it's painfully slow. It's taking years, and you're still not where you want to be. Well, it's because every day or most days, you're making the decision to do things the way you've been doing them. You're doing this subconsciously, but you're still, you're making the decision. And it's on those days when you or you're feeling, however you might be feeling, and you say, you know, I'm going to try something different today. What's been doing isn't working. And I'm no longer satisfied with just going along with that. I'm going to make my own decisions. And I'm deciding to pursue a different approach here. Try something different, figure out a different solution than the other solutions that I've tried in the past that don't really solve the problems. That's a decision, like I said, this is one where again, we do this all kinds of. In all our situations, all day long, throughout the day, we're making decisions, a lot of them. It's simply not making the decision or kind of deciding not to make the decision different than we have. And so we're running on autopilot. Autopilot is those decisions being made again, same way we've been doing it. It's become a routine, it's become a subconscious activity. So it's important to consciously look at your life, look at your trading, and say, okay, where am I not happy? Where is the status quo? Just really not what I want to continue with in the future. You make the decision. I mean, even your thinking, you're constantly choosing what to think about, what to focus your attention on, what to ignore, what to think about, what to put effort into, what not to constant decisions. You're either going to make the decision to continue to do things the same way, get the same results, or you're going to decide to do things differently. At some point along the way, you weren't happy with who you were. You said, I want to be a trader. Maybe not in that particular conversation or thought process, but somewhere along the way you made the decision to become a trader. Cool. You had thousands of other options. You could have chosen to do other things, but you decided to become a trader. And that sets you on this course. And that's what's cool. I don't know if it's Confucius, one of the Chinese philosophers, who said, you are the sum of your life's decisions. And if you think about it, yes, you're making literally thousands of decisions all day, every day. As you're driving down the road, somebody pulls in front of you. You can make the decision to get upset about it or not worry about it or just ignore it, right? In just that one moment can be 15 different decisions made as far as how you're going to react, how you're going to think, what you're going to focus on. Like I said, if you think about it. Like I said, we're decision making machines. That's what we are as a human consciousness with a brain that that allows us to go beyond just looking out for our biological needs. That's where the animal kingdom, most of the animal kingdom is. They're just tending to their biological needs and that's pretty much their mental activity for the day. We have the ability to go way beyond that. That's why we've been able to rise to the level that we have as far as sophistication in our life, technology, industry, all that kind of stuff. So it's the decisions that we make. And the thing is free will, like he says in the movie, free will comes when you take that role and you say, I'm going to decide for myself. I'm not just going to sit back and say, well this is how things are and so I can't do anything about it. I don't have the choice. You always have the choice. Every day you make the choice to either continue with the way things are, to be the person you have been, to live the life the way you have, to do your trading the way you have, or the moment comes when you decide to do things differently, to be somebody else, to become somebody else. And that's cool. It's a matter of exercising your free will, claiming it, looking at your life, making the decisions and that's fantastic. Now if you're wanting to make a change with your trading and not just buy more systems and focus on more discipline and get out of that cycle and you want to look toward maybe looking at it as a skill based activity, maybe there's some skills that you're lacking, maybe there's some understandings that you don't have, some perspectives that you don't yet have. And that's what's been holding you back. Today you decide you want to pursue it. Excellent. Well, if you want to do that, click on the link below in the description below and that will take you over to a page where I'm running a Christmas special right now. If you want to look at any of my products, save a whole bunch of money and get those different perspectives, you don't have to. Again, it's a decision. You can continue the way you've been on and getting the same results, that's fine. If you decide you'd like to explore something different, cool. Here's a way to do it. Save some bucks every day, all day. Remember, be aware that you have free will. Exercise it, claim it, live your life that you want, claim it. And you're free to do that. That's what free will is all about. That's what I love about the movie. Anyway, it's Brian McAvoy with Inside Out Trading. If you enjoyed this video, give us a like, subscribe, share with your friends, of course, all these things. And yeah, click the link below, take a look, see if there's something here that can help you with your trading. Make tomorrow better than today, you know, next month better than this month. Talk to you soon.