Pesrformance stress

Performance anxiety, performance stress. Think about it. When you're trading, have you ever noticed what happens to your body, to your physiology? Have you ever noticed that, that as you anticipate a trade that your pulse is going to go up, that you get more tension, everything fires up. Suddenly the calm autonomic nervous system kicks into higher gear and it's that kicking that begins to be the problem. That kicking is firing the fight flight response. Suddenly you may become and as performance stress you may become scared, worried or anxious about what's going to happen or you may become overeager. You may become like ready to take advantage, ready to do something. That's performance stress. You can break it out into two areas though. Anxiety, performance anxiety. Those are the folks where they may show up in their trading room already worried, their body is already stiff. You can already see that they are in performance anxiety. They were fine when they weren't believing that they were going to have to perform in trading. But there they are, the other group is sitting there getting excited. They're going, oh my God, I'm going to be trading. I can, I'm going to make my money today. I'm going to really do it. And what you discover is both of these are performance stress. The real kicker outside of the physiological arousal which is necessary, the key is what most traders don't do, they don't manage that physiological arousal. In a lot of my training we're looking at heart rate and when we're looking at it is to be able to look at a point where we know that they're aroused, that their emotions are cranked up, they're focused, they're alert, but, but they are not so elevated that they are.

Triggering to worry or eagerness. They are sitting there and they are alert but they are patient. They are alert but they are at rest. That's the key. A lot of people aren't doing that, they're revving up. And they never stop the arousal process from going over.

Their control. And the stress no longer is eustress, which is really good. That's the focus, focused attention that you have patience in and readiness in. And it goes to the oh my God, I'm scared, I'm worried what's going to happen or I'm going to take advantage of this, I'm going to make things happen. The key though is when you come to this you realize that, well, you know, performance stress is not an option. It's going to happen and you want it to happen. The worst thing that could possibly happen is for you to Be so calm that you're not alert to potential in a trade. At the same time, that has to be really measured. It has to be in a place where you sit there and go, you know something, I need to be slightly aroused. At the same time, I need to have that arousal focused on being able to be patient, being ready to pounce when it's time to pounce, when the market's showing me what it's going to do, when it's saying, this is what I'm willing to give you. What happens, though, is that as this gets aroused, as this physiology gets aroused, it moves into worry or into excitement, and that's the danger. What you're looking for in performance stress is this magical spot. This magical spot that allows you.

To be in a zone, but not too far in the zone that you end up in fight flight. That will also, once you have that physiology done, what you also have to do is you have to say, well, you know, ultimately, when I'm in fight flight, when I start seeing my body crank up for performance, what I'm also beginning to recognize is I am projecting my beliefs, literally about my ability to manage uncertainty. You, you're projecting that onto the phenomenon called the market. Friends, that's where it gets really interesting. Because ultimately, your trading account becomes a barometer to the belief system that you're projecting onto the phenomenon called the markets. Ultimately, most people honestly believe that they're not going to win, that they're going to do everything if they do everything right. I don't want to lose. I don't want to lose. That arousal is going to go straight into performance anxiety.

But what happens if it's okay to either win or lose?

Listen to that. Think about how much you're taught about. Everything's about winning. You know, Bear Bryant of Alabama football fame said, you know, a tie is like kissing your sister, and losing is even worse. Imagine taking that into trading.

Where ultimately.

Literally a huge chunk of trading is about how to lose well, you know that things are not going to go as planned a lot of the times, and that you have to be ready in performance stress to take advantage of saying, okay, I know when to get out of this trade and to minimize loss. I know when to stay in this trade to maximize gain. Ultimately, it's the way you manage the performance stress that allows you to either do that well or not do it well at all. So recapping this thing, ultimately, your job as a trader is to be able to manage the arousal level so that you stay alert, focused, ready. But not cranked in the fight flight. Okay? So you can't be in rest, digest. That's the parasympathetic nervous system. And you can't be in a sympathetic nervous system where you're fight flight. You're in the zone of physical arousal where you're there. But that's just the biology. The next stage is managing the mind that you're bringing into that moment. Because ultimately part of the anxiety is this, is that you can't control outcome. But if you accept that and you say that was an illusion anyway, it may be a very persistent illusion, but it's an illusion and it brings down a lot of traitors. But what you can control is the mind that you're bringing into the moment.

Of performance. That's the key. If you do that, what happens is you say, well, you know something, I have to be able to manage the physiological arousal. I have to be able to manage the mind that's meeting there. I have to manage the beliefs and work with those beliefs so that I know that I can manage uncertainty, I can prevail. And it's all about performance. And suddenly in performance stress, where it's in the right zone, it's not about winning or losing, it's about performing. If you do that, and your method does have an edge, you bring the psychological edge that completes the circle. You've got methodology, you've got platform, and you've got psychology of mind working together at elevated level. Performance stress, that's not going to anxiety or excitement. You're in that zone where you are managing performance which you can control.

And you're no longer deceiving yourself that you can manage outcome. You know that's not possible. You're letting that go. You're not looking at your P and L statement. What you're looking is you're assessing what mind am I bringing in this moment? How well is this mind performing? Stay in this zone. Wins and losses take care of themselves, you minimize those losses, you maximize those gains. And what you have is you have a mind.

That'S using performance stress very constructively. It's staying in the zone so that you're alert, you're focused, you're ready. You can manage your emotions that you bring to the moment of performance, but the stress is not triggering over to distress, fear, or to eustress feeling too good. You're right there in the zone, alert, focused, ready, Recognizing that you're in command of performance, not outcome. That's the trader's state of mind, friends. Learn more about it. Come to the webinar, Come to my website, take a look, look at the free stuff, and really start learning about how to train your mind to manage probability rather than winning. Okay, Take care.