Build confidence by affirming yourself, questioning your critic, and embracing the fear. Need to catch up? Check out Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4,Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, and Day 8
Today, we begin this post with scripture from Juvenile, the father of many millennials. And the scripture reads as follows:
"You a paper chaser, you got your block on fire
Remaining a G until the moment you expire
You know what it is, you make nothin' out of somethin'
You handle your biz and don't be cryin' and sufferin'"
Listen... you could've sworn up and down that you would be able to take over the world after affirming this to yourself.
The focus of this scripture is the part in BOLD. Being able to CREATE YOUR LIFE WITH CONFIDENCE!
Affirming yourself is the first point of building confidence.
Anyone in this world can make you feel good about yourself but no one in this world will make you believe it long enough for you to be able to accomplish your goals in confidence.
Trading takes an immense amount of confidence. You must believe that you are making the right trades based on your ability to do proper technical and mental analysis.
In the book Trading in the Zone, you are given an attitude test to determine how well you "think like a trader".
No matter how well you are able to read the market, if you are not confident in your ability to make valid analysis, you will not act on your ideas fast enough or pull out of trades when it is time. I'm guilty so it's definitely a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
But who isn't guilty of this in the beginning. I began taking trades in January 2020. HOWEVER, I stopped in February because I realized how important it was for me to shift my mindset. I took more time clearing out my emotional baggage than I did actually in the market.
Why? Because if I didn't allow myself to become jaded about the market too soon based on my inability to control my emotional responses, then I would be able to reenter with a fresh mind as if my losses were minor and not major.
This leads me to the second point of building confidence and that's questioning your critique.
I see all the time people getting down on themselves about not understanding how to trade like a pro in the 2.5 seconds they have been in the industry.
I'm not sure where you can go to learn something and be a pro at it off the rip. Its a false mentality and its really just an emotional tie to your money. You really have to question where these ideas come from.
If you consider this a business, consider your losses an investment. Look at it as inventory purchases, marketing costs, website development, rent for office space, phone bill, POS system, merchant charges, etc.
Whatever you can do to psych yourself out of believing that its a LOSS, do it. There is no way you can walk into anything for free and make money from it. Detach yourself from the idea of LOSS and become comfortable with the fact that everything REQUIRES an initial investment.
Use the assessment workbooks from day 1 and really decide if you are emotionally attached to your money and success.
Detach from fear by embracing it. Accept it as an indicator that you are entering territory that feels like new heights to you.
I lived on the 19th floor of a high rise building in Houston, Tx for 2 years. Right before that, I was in an apartment that only went up 3 stories. I remember walking around that complex mentally preparing myself to WALK IN THE BUILDING of that high rise.
Meaning, I wasn't even brave enough to walk in at the time because I was afraid that I would be seen as unworthy to be there. I had the money and the ability to pay for the condo but I thought that I didn't deserve to go from one extreme to the next.
Anyway, I would walk around my old apartment complex and picture myself on the balcony of a high floor in the building. It was so vivid that I would literally feel the anxiety you get when you are up high.
I eventually realized that the fear wasn't a fear of new heights but a fear of falling from that high!
I also realized that the likelihood of me falling from the balcony was slim to none because I wouldn't even allow myself to be put in a position to fall from up there.
I visualized looking over that balcony with absolutely no fear and by the time I moved into my new place on the 19th floor, I was able to ENJOY the beautiful view without feeling like I would fall.
I EMBRACED the fear by realizing that the worst that could happen will only happen IF I ALLOW IT.
If you fear blowing an account, you only have that fear because you haven't visualized yourself STOPPING yourself before that even happens.
I was $80 away from blowing the daily loss limit of my evaluation account. Guess what? I already told myself that if I get even close to that level of loss, get out the market [shrug]. Live to trade another day.
You are only greedy because you fear that the market won't make that money available to you again. You fear losing your money because you don't feel that you have an abundant relationship with money or that you deserve money.
And one thing I know for a FACT is that the most high ONLY responds to how you feel and not only what you tell yourself. You have to tell yourself great things to the degree that you FEEL them deeply and clear out your fear by knowing what you would do AHEAD of time before your worst fear happens.
You have to believe that you have things under your control instead of vice versa.
