Trading Psychology Video - Beliefs and Their Impact On Your Trading

Hi, Brian McAvoy here. And today we're going to talk about beliefs and how they impact your trading and a couple of things within this area. And I'm also going to give you a couple exercises to counter limiting or counterproductive beliefs. If you find it as you go through this discovery process and examining your beliefs that you know, yeah, you do have a few things that are working against you and making your trade more difficult than it needs to be. Okay, so let's get started. As far as beliefs, some of the things that are really critical about beliefs in general particularly pertinent to your trading. First of all, beliefs really define your reality for you. They really do. When you have sensory input through words that you hear, things that you see, the trading charts, the news, all that kind of stuff, your sensory input is filtered through your set of beliefs before it even gets to your conscious mind to evaluate consciously. That right there is huge. Now, you may have also heard the saying along the way or the advice to monitor your thoughts. It goes clear back to the power of positive thinking and all that kind of stuff. And in more recent times, with the law of attraction and those type of things, generally being aware of your thinking, understanding that what you focus your conscious attention on is what you generally tend to attract into your life, whether you believe in the law of attraction or not. I mean, it only makes sense if you're thinking about failure and problems all the time. Well, you're more likely to encounter more problems and that kind of stuff if that's your focus. Now, where your beliefs come into play. As far as your thoughts, well, your beliefs will determine really what you limit your thinking to and what you allow yourself to think. I mean, if your belief is that nobody's making money at trading, it's all a big sham that precludes you allowing yourself to believe that it's possible for you or even to think in that direction. And of course, if you're thinking that way, well, your subconscious is going to reinforce that. Now, as far as your beliefs about yourself, your beliefs about trading, beliefs about money and economic system, all that kind of stuff, all these beliefs, again, they kind of go. It's all a big sham that precludes you allowing yourself to believe that it's possible for you or even to think in that direction. And of course, if you're thinking that way, well, your subconscious is going to reinforce that. As far as your beliefs about yourself, your beliefs about trading, beliefs about money and economic system, all that kind of stuff, all these beliefs, again, they kind of govern what Thoughts are going to roll through your head, what's allowed to be there, what's rejected. And so attending to your beliefs is really important. Now, real simple things that you can do when you encounter a belief that maybe you discover through just consciously listening to the talk that goes on in your head. Or if you kind of look at your life and you say, well, gosh, I keep seeing these things over and over again, well, those actions or those happenings kind of indicate that I hold this belief, maybe that I'm not worthy or coming from the family that I did. We're just not supposed to make above a certain amount of money, that kind of stuff. So you might have those kind of limiting beliefs and what you can do. A couple exercises, real simple one from Dr. Robert Anthony. He says what you want to do is hold that thought up or that belief up to. Beliefs are just thoughts. They really are. So you put a conscious evaluation on it. First of all, is it really even true? Is it working for me or against me? And is it something that I want to hang on to or do I want to replace it? Of course, using affirmations. Affirmations is a good way to counter beliefs. I mean, a lot of times beliefs are something that really, it's just a negative thought. Limiting beliefs, they're just negative thoughts that we've run through our head over and over and over again until the point where we just accept them as facts, whether or not they're true. Conscious evaluation and affirmations are really a couple of excellent tools for dealing with limiting beliefs, especially about things about yourself. Quick exercise and I love this. In the Lifebook program, they've got 12 categories of life. There are four questions that they want you to answer, the first one of which, and this again covers all the different areas of your life. But the first question they ask is, what do you believe? Which I thought was really cool in that program. And it's a really important thing to do. Sometimes just sitting down and asking yourself, what do I believe? What negative things do I believe? What positive things do I believe about this particular subject matter, whether it's trading or myself or whatever, just to sit down and ponder that question. Take a look at what your actions indicate. When you find out some of the things that your repetitive thoughts and your actions and all that indicate that you truly believe. Then again, then you can put the conscious evaluation on them. Affirmations and other things. There are things that you can do to affect your beliefs. Really good. It's asking yourself the question, what do I believe? I went through this exercise myself not too long ago. One of the beliefs that I've come to hold over the years is that if you take a person of reasonable intelligence and you throw them into an occupation like trading, that's challenging and does have certain requirements, but you throw that person into this job without the proper preparation and training, they will struggle, the success rate will be low, there will be a lot of mistakes, and there's almost no way for it not to be an emotional experience. But if you take that same person and you give them the proper training and you give them adequate and complete training on all that they need to know for that job so that they go into it fully prepared, they're not going to have psychological issues. They're just going to go do their thing. And the same is true for you. And I found it to be that, that philosophy and that approach to be extremely helpful and effective. For the people that have come to me for issues, functional issues, psychological issues, help in general with their training. These have proven to be very, very, very true. And I didn't make this up. This is from my years in quality where I put together training programs to help people get good at what they were doing and then get consistent about it in a variety of capacities, working with tons of, tons of different people. And so I found it to be true in trading as well. And that's cool. What that means for you is you don't have to spend a year or two on a therapist couch trying to fix your head. It's just a matter of acquiring the skills that you haven't yet. Just because you understand trading and you get the game and you know how it works and you understand your system, that doesn't mean that you have everything you need to know. Other things that I've come to believe that most traders are above average in most regards, intelligence and success and all that kind of stuff, character, and that includes you. Another thing that I believe about trading and people in general, I do believe people are good people. Most people that I've grown across in trading, traders, they're good people. They're doing this because they have a genuine and sincere desire for a better life. They want to have a good retirement. They want to provide for their families or their church or whoever. They want to leave a good inheritance for their posterity. So they're good people who are willing to invest themselves, put in the time, work hard for good purpose, good reason. It's not like the Wolf of Wall street where it's just all a bunch of debauchery. I believe that you're a good person and I want to help you achieve your goals. So anyway, those are a few of the beliefs that I hold personally about trading it is a business, it is a profession, and if you get the proper training on it, adequate training, that you very likely will make it, you put the odds in your favor when you get the proper training, and that's cool. It is a learnable profession. Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you. As far as looking at beliefs, it really is a powerful thing, especially at this time of year, when it's time to be reflected.