Is Too Much Trading Discipline Killing Your Psychological Capital?

Anybody who has invested in trading courses and books knows the dogma of the trading coaches: Discipline, discipline, discipline.

Trading discipline is hailed as the trading panacea that ensures your success as a trader and investor.

The disciplined trader believes that rigorous discipline in following his trading set ups will improve trading performance and make him immune to trading mistakes, and make trading fears evaporate is if by magic

Not only do I beg to differ but I would go as far as to say that this premise is utter nonsense. The old assumption that we can make decisions purely by directing the mind while ignoring our other senses is wrong. Scientific research provides clear evidence that our feelings play a vital part in the decision making process.

Science is now acknowledging the mind, body connection as a vital part of our being and thus our decision making process. It confirms what the wisdom traditions have told us for thousands of years:

Our bodies function as an all inclusive energy matrix which is a fractal, holographic expression of the universe.

In other words: There is no separation of any kind. Mind, body, emotions, feelings, and all the other senses work in unison in a complex constant information exchange with our surroundings. .We have created a false sense of separation believing that we can create our lives with the mind, the logos alone, overriding the body's sensory system. This paradigm has created a flawed view of our true nature and also of our reality. We are only accessing a tiny part of the information available to u, which is comunicated to us through our emotions and feelings. Emotions and feelings are a vital feed back mechanism we can put to excellent use in our trading decisions.

If you can fully grasp the immense importance of the above paragraph your entire reality will change. You will be addressing the issue of trading discipline from a higher perspective.

Truth is that you cannot separate your rational mind from your feelings

Exercising strict trading discipline is a mental process, an act of pure willpower overriding other sensory feedback..In order to make resourceful decisions in your trading and in your life in general, your feelings are always involved, whether you are aware of this or not. Feelings are a natural part of our being. You cannot do away with them.

Bullying yourself into using your mind only to make trading decisions is rather like attempting to walk using just one leg.

In order to be consistently profitable you need to be balanced mentally and physically

This requires using all your sensory powers, including your mind in a harmonious fashion without giving too much weight to either your feelings and emotions or the mind. Much unnecessary energy is expended by forcing the body and mind to adopt disciplinarian procedures in the name of better trading which could be better directed in honing and increasing cognitive awareness of your mental processes and your body's feelings when you are making trading decisions like managing your open positions, or deciding whether or not to enter a new trade..

Trader burn out is a well known phenomena. Trading requires clear focus and the ability to process large amounts of fast changing information very quickly. Most traders have never been properly trained to manage their mental and physical resources in a way that allows them to operate on high performance levels for long. This is one of the reasons why many traders struggle with consistency in their trading performance and experience mental challenges.. They simply have not been given the right tools for the job.

So, why do you keep making the same trading mistakes over and over again?

Good trading discipline alone will not stop you from repeating trading mistakes. In fact excessive dscipline may increase your insecurities. Why? Because discipline suppresses emotional issues and blocks that may stop you from being consistently successful in your trading.  Excessive trading discipline doesn't clear the mental chatter and lack of focus, but actually adds to it.  You worry about constantly controlling your level of discipline in addition to trading decisions you need to focus on, while also suppressing the natural functioning of your body and mind.

The energy you are wasting on constantly controlling yourself is immense. It will tire you out and diminish your self confidence and make you feel negative as a result. I guarantee you, when you operate from this vantage point you will never ever be a good enough trader in your own eyes. Self criticism is a sure fire way to trading failure.

Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Intellectually we all know this adage, yet why is it so difficult to adopt new behavioural patterns?

The reason is to do with lack of awareness of your decision making processes. The average trader has many automatic programs running in the background, many of them not conducive to promoting successful trading. .We are so busy controlling and suppressing our true nature that we have forgotten about the art of "receiving".

Lack of cognitive awareness leads you to repeat patterns of sabotaging trading behaviours

They are almost always rooted in unresolved early childhood issues. The well known trader van Tharp makes all his " super traders" spend a year on resolving their psychological issues. And for good reason: Unless you have the awareness to understand how and from what belief system you are repeating un resourceful behaviour patterns you will find it extremely difficult to let go of old habits.

Exercising  discipline as a means to achieve goals is a pattern, most probably learned from early childhood. Discipline is a close relative of the false paradigm that hard work will create success. It is human nature to repeat behaviour patterns until we recognize that they are not producing the results we desire.

I could tell you over and over again: "Stop hesitating, pull the trigger earlier, take a break when tired", unless you can see clearly for yourself that your behaviour is costing you money the odds are that you will continue the behaviour. While the old programs are still running in your head, I also call them distractor implants, you will not move forward, no matter how you discipline yourself. The answer to creating consistent trading success is always increasing cognitive awareness. As you notice more of your habitual patterns and integrate all aspects of your personality trading success follows automatically.

Trading success is not about hard work. It is not about discipline. Trading success is about learning self awareness and integrating those parts of you you subconsciously react to. Sure, you can discipline yourself long enough and beat all those habits which don't contribute to your trading success into submission. It is very hard work though, requires immense energy and is not exactly a lot of fun either. I am showing you an easier, gentler way. It is more fun to and gets you to realise your trading goals faster if you are willing to allow it.

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You may want to check out "The Buddhist Trader". It provides you with valuable insights into your behaviour and expands your cognitive awareness.