4/15/2025 – A bit later this week, I’ll be returning to the Syracuse medical school where I teach and introducing psychiatry residents to research-backed ideas on how we can accelerate changes in thinking and behavior. A key concept from the research literature is that we cannot make lasting changes while remaining in our normal, habitual states of mind and body. Emotional arousal and fresh experience open us to change. A major shortcoming of our trading psychology efforts is that we review performance and set goals without transforming our consciousness. In upcoming posts, I will share my experience with intensifying focus/concentration and processing trading lessons while in a sustained switched-on mode. I strongly suspect that just as important as what we rehearse is the state of mind of our rehearsals.
4/14/2025 The best way to work on your trading psychology is by cultivating your intentionality: your ability to sustain purposeful action. The mind is like a muscle, and it becomes fatigued. When our minds become overloaded, the result is distractibility and the inability to efficiently pursue goals. Becoming emotional is often a result of this problem, not the cause. By dividing your trading day, week, and month into discrete units, setting goals relevant to those units, and refreshing as you move from one time period to the next, you maximize your brain’s ability to stay focused on your best trading processes.
What would happen, for example, if you were an active trader and divided your trading day into morning (NYSE open to 11 AM ET); midday (11 AM ET – 2 PM ET); and afternoon (2 PM ET to NYSE close)? Each of these time units would be treated as a separate trading “day”, with their own preparation, review, and goals. Most important, there would be time in between these trading “days” to refresh attention and focus, learn from the most recent action, and reset. If each trading “day” had its own, unique P/L, then twice daily you would reset P/L and frame fresh goals. Breaking up the day in such a fashion, frequently resetting/reviewing, and setting new goals, how likely would it be that you would lapse into emotional trading and go on tilt? How likely would it be that any such lapse would extend through your day? When we make time intentional, we build our intentionality and gain greater control over our trading–and our trading psychology.
4/11/2025 – What if you viewed each day of trading as a gift? The losing days and missed opportunities are learning lessons you’ve been given to make you better. The winning days and trades are also wonderful opportunities to show you who you are and what you do well. Every trading day approached in a purposeful manner gives you a gift: a P/L in terms of your growth and development. In that mindset, you can approach every trading day with gratitude, acceptance, and purpose. The only negative mindset is one where we turn down the gifts we’re being given. Each of us has a path to travel in terms of becoming better people. For some of us, trading is that path.