Trading Psychology: How Everyone Gets It WRONG

Hi, Brian McAvoy here with Inside Out Trading. And today I want to talk to you about something that really hurts a lot of traders. It really does. And it says to. Yeah, this is like one of the. The fundamental truths of trading psychology that so many people just miss. They really do. I mean, there are. There's a lot of talk about the psychology of trading, and, you know, it's. It's a big deal, but so many people have the wrong perspective on it and the wrong understanding, and that's why it takes forever and a lot, you know, the issues don't go away. Here's what I'm talking about. So many people, when it, you know, when they come to me for help, they're thinking, you know, I've got a strategy, and I just can't seem to stick to it. You know, I got a decent strategy. I just can't seem to stick to it. So the problem must be me. There must be something wrong with me. And. Okay. And that's a logical perspective. I mean, because it seems straightforward enough. Right. The trading seems pretty simple. I know how it works. I know what I'm supposed to do. I got a strategy to follow if I could just do it right. So that's the apparent situation, and that's the apparent psychology about, oh, you know, my emotions keep flaring up on me or, you know, I get impatient or I'm getting bored or I'm getting nervous or fear of failure, all this, all this other stuff and that. Understand, it's all valid. I'm not saying, you know, that, you know, you're not having those feelings or, and they don't come up and, you know, so, you know, I'm not saying that the talk out there of the experience is invalid. Yeah, when, when, you know, when you're trading is a common, you know, experience for traders to deal with, you know, fear, greed, hope and despair. All. Yes, of course it is. But. And here's where. Here's where I have the big exception with it. I've been doing this for almost 20 years now. Over 18 years I've been helping, working with other traders. Plus I got years of that. Here's on top of that in my own experience. And what I found in working with most traders is that they do not inherit. They do not inherently have something wrong with them as a person. It's not something that is wrong with you as a person. It's not something outside of trading that's wrong with you. Like you have some issue with money or, you know, self, you know, self worth problems or, you know, some mommy daddy issue from your childhood because your mommy said something to, to you when you were 7 years old that hurt your feelings and screwed you up for trading. Are there people with issues? Yes, in, in trading? Of course, in, in any large population, there will be a certain number of people that have genuine issues. For the most part, though, the vast majority of traders that I've worked with actually are, generally speaking, fine. They're quite capable of succeeding as a trader. They don't have major issues with money or their, you know, mommy and daddy or, you know, success and that kind of stuff. The issue that most everybody's fighting and trading comes directly from your trading experience itself, not something wrong with you from outside of trading or before trading. Here's what I'm talking about. Almost everybody that gets into trading, you get into it and you don't have a formal introduction to a well organized preparation for this occupation. You heard about it from somebody, you attended a webinar, you read an article, you saw you know, a YouTube video, you listen to a podcast, and your information has come kind of piecemeal and from a generally, you know, ad hoc kind of training. And so you haven't honestly been properly prepared for this occupation. Is trading easy enough to understand how it works? Yes. Is it easy enough to understand what you're supposed to do? Yes. Lot of occupations are that way that require a very specific level of skill, and trading is no exception. So you can't just look at it and say, I understand how it works, I understand what I'm supposed to do, therefore I should be good at it. No, the thing is, this is a game of skill. And if you jump into this like most traders do, and start trading with real money before you're properly prepared, what happens then is those days and weeks, months, maybe even years of all that unprepared, not fully 100, you know, ready for this job. Practice is what you're doing every day. I know, like my first year of trading, I spent a lot of time every day practicing emotional trading, practicing bad trading, practicing chasing the markets, practicing being impatient, practicing making mistakes. And so I was practicing and being conditioned to trade in a, an emotional and not very successful manner now. And that's the training I was getting. That's the way my system, my, my nervous system and my emotional system, my brain were all being wired was to trade in this way and with those filters being wired. And so it's not so much that there's something wrong with you as a person, it's you've gone through bad conditioning. In your early weeks and months as a trader, you got a whole, you had a whole bunch of emotional responses wired into you that are not healthy, nor are they good for you. You, you, you got, you practiced trading from courage and not confidence. You're trading filled with anxiety and hope and all that kind of stuff. And that's what, that's what we were practicing in the, you know, in those early days and weeks and months, sometimes years. And so when you go through all that bad conditioning, yeah, it's going to have you wired for trading to be emotional, for it to be stressful, for it to be filled with mistakes because they have become somewhat habitual, because they become part of your emotional response. And you have all these associations and responses that are easily triggered. And so the way to fix it is not with a new strategy. The way to fix it is not through affirmations and meditation. I mean, although meditation is good, good for you, I'm not knocking it, but it's not the solution. Meditation is not automatically going to turn you into a good, good skilled trader. What ha. What needs to happen is you need to go through a proper training where you learn the skills. You learn how to go about trading the right way and get mentally conditioned the right way for a good, consistent execution. But you get the training so that you're skilled up, so that you go to the markets with that confidence that you know you're solid, you know that you know what you're doing, and you're operating from, again, a position of confidence in knowing and peace of mind. And when you can do that, that's when your emotions calm down. But it takes both the training and the mental conditioning. You have to know how to be consistent. Nobody teaches you that. They teach you how to, you know, yellow, let's go make, let's go make money. Let's go shoot. You know, let's go, you know, let's go make profit. Let's, let's pursue profit. Nobody teaches consistency. That's why I focus on, and say focus on consistency first. When you learn the skill set of consistency and how to properly take a, a strategy, make it consistent, dial it in for profit, and mentally condition yourself for good execution. Now you can go to the markets able to take that good strategy and execute it comfortably and consistently and execute it well so you're actually making money, not a bunch of mistakes. So again, from this, from this, you know, perspective, and I've seen this literally for almost 20 years in my own experience, this is the big deal with Trading psychology, it really is. Trading is a skill based occupation. And if you're trying to go, if you're trying to, you know, play this game, so to speak, if you're trying to do this job and you haven't developed the skills, you haven't gone through the training and you've actually had bad, possibly bad conditioning and bad training. Not just inadequate, but bad. Yeah, it's going to be rough, it's going to be emotional, it's going to, it's going to be hard and it's going to be stressful and you're probably not going to be happy with the results. And so long as you continue, you know, just chasing strategies or, you know, focusing on it, just be more disciplined. If I can just mentally fight my way through this, if you keep pursuing those paths, you're going to stay stuck on them indefinitely. So my recommendation is pursue the right training. Learn how to get consistent first, how to build a confidence, how to mentally condition yourself for good execution. And I mean, there are a variety of skills. Trading is a skill based occupation. And when you acquire the right skills, you get the right training and you can be mentally conditioned for good execution and confidence. This all of a sudden becomes rather easy. And you can operate from a position of calm and make good decisions and enjoy success. And you'll find that trading really, when you're properly prepared, is no more stressful or emotional than any other job that you've had, which it should be if you think about it. You've probably had or done things that were much more complicated and sophisticated than trading and you did them just fine. You didn't, you know, you didn't go to them every day just, you know, a wreck filled with anxiety and the hope and fear and greed and despair and all, all the nonsense of trading. No, you just went and you did your job. Some days are better than others, but at the end of the day, you go home and you live your life right. Okay? Trading. When you go about it the right way, it's a very similar emotional experience. You trade some days are better than others, but nothing really wrecks your life. End of the day, you live your life cool. And that's how it's supposed to work. Anyway. If you'd like to find out more about this swingby insideouttrading.com got some resources for you there. If you want to book a call with me, talk about what's going on with your situation, we can explore the best way, you know, to, to help you get past what's holding you back right now. And if you do have genuine psych, you know, psychological issues, maybe a subconscious issue, I was talking to just the other day, I referred him to a colleague of mine because his issue actually was psychological. He had the skills, he had, he had a whole lot of the. The competence side of things down. And he just had recently had things just flip on him where, yeah, all of a sudden he's just sabotaging the crap out of himself. And I talked with him about it. It's like, dude, you're good on the skill side. You've got that down. You experienced a really good period of solid, knowing success. Cool. You got something else going on, a subconscious something that's messing with you. And I referred him to a colleague of mine. Cool. If there's some other kind of help you need, I have a lot of good colleagues in the space. If it's my help that you need, I'll be happy, more than happy to help you out. Anyway, I hope this video has been helpful. If it has, share it with your friends. Subscribe to my channel. This is the kind of stuff I talk about, you know, how to be a successful trader. And, and you know, if you have friends, share with your friends, they'll like even better if you, you know, you help them fix their trading issues. Anyway, again, I hope this has been helpful. We'll talk to you soon. Cheers. In the space. If it's my help that you need, I'll be happy, more than happy to help you out. Anyway, I hope this video has been helpful. If it has, share it with your friends. Subscribe to my channel. This is the kind of stuff I talk about, you know, how to be a successful tr.