Brian McAvoy explains why traders struggle with discipline: fear, not greed, is the real problem. He breaks down the types of fear that derail traders and argues that mastery of your trading system builds the confidence needed to stick to your plan.
You. Hi, Brian McAvoy here with Inside Out Trading. And today we're going to talk about difficulty with discipline. Reason number one, and really it is reason number one, because I found that of all the different stories, different things that I hear from individuals as far as why they're having trouble sticking to their system, this really is the number one reason. And a lot of times not sticking to the system, they're chasing bad trades, they're playing with the rules, that kind of stuff. And most of the time they'll attribute it to greed as far as chasing bad trades and stuff like that. But really I found that it's not greed, it's fear. See, if somebody was truly greedy, they wouldn't be reckless. They would be very careful because they're wanting to hang on to every dollar. And so they're not going to be risking and losing money like crazy chasing dollars. Truly greedy people are very careful. This, like I said, it's fear, it's not greed. And so what kind of fears am I talking about? Well, I'm going to touch on a few here that you've probably not heard brought up in the trading environment before. I'm not talking about fear of failure, fear of success. One of the deepest fears that a lot of traders have that they never want to bring up to the front is a fear of exposure, that they're really not as competent as they should be to be trading real money. And it's like they have this fear that, oh my gosh, somebody's going to find out or I'm going to have to somehow someday face this. And so that's one of the deep seated fears, another one just plain as fear. And it stems from that lack of proficiency that it's like if they're not getting in on every trade, if they're not just staying after it, what is going to happen is that they're going to miss that big winner that makes all the difference. That's the game changer for them that turns everything around and sometimes just plain fear of unknown consequences and that really is one of the big ones. The fear of missing out is huge. So how do you overcome this fear? Well, first of all, you have to understand that the fear comes from a lack of confidence. I mean, think about it. You engage in risky things all the time. If you drive a car, that's a risky endeavor. And you remember when you were very first learning about it. Yeah, it was scary. As you develop the skill and the proficiency to drive a car, the fear went away. Buying a house can be A very scary ordeal. But once you've done it and you've developed some confidence at it, you've had some successes under your belt, then it gets better. Proficiency and competence lead to confidence which overcomes fear. So the first one really is to understand that this fear is a lack of confidence. Step number two is, is to really focus not on making money, but focus on proficiency and mastery. As far as with your trading system, a lot of traders, they just look at that as a tool for trading. But when it comes to your trading system, you got to understand kind of the nature of it. Your trading system, it's called a system, almost like it's a machine. But it's not a machine. It's what you do, that's your method, it's your procedure. And you have to have a level of mastery over dealing with a procedure. This activity of trading, that's just plain a core skill for being an independent trader, truly independent. If you don't want to be an independent trader, you want to be a dependent trader where you're following somebody else's signal services or you're going into a trading room and you're comfortable with that, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you want to be a trader, you're analyzing your own trades, you're selecting them, and you're doing it all on your own. You're not dependent on somebody else's expertise. You have to develop the mastery for it. That's why I created the Trading System Mastery Coaching Program. To find out more about that, just click the link below. You'll understand what I'm talking about. But seriously, this is one of the core skills and something that you absolutely have to attend to, or otherwise your trading psychology problems will never go away. If you're going to keep trying to trade with a system that you don't have full confidence in it, you don't have full confidence in yourself to trade with it proficiently, you haven't established that confidence. The fears and everything that those fears bring up, the mistakes, the errors, all the other emotions, they're never going to go away until you develop the proficiency and the mastery that you need to have the confidence. So that's why I want to help you with this. Again, this is Brian McAvoy with Inside Out Trading. Click the link below to find out more. Talk to you soon. Cheers.
