The most important lesson that anyone who wants to become a successful trader must learn is that psychology is everything in trading. But just knowing this will not make your account grow.
A common misconception is that profitable trading is all about the system. That is why aspiring traders spend thousands of dollars to buy courses that teach systems, but wonder why nothing works.
In fact, you could have the all rules for a trading system that someone else traded very profitably and you would probably still screw it up, without the right psychology.
There is nothing wrong with spending money on education obviously, because you also need to have a proven trading system that works, to go along with your upgraded psychology.
But “trading psychology” is a very broad term. What does that even mean?
Is it the Feng Shui of your trading desk? Is it understanding how the moon phases affect you?
It could be, but that's not what I'm talking about.
In this post, I would like to tackle something much, much bigger in trading psychology: why we prevent ourselves from succeeding. We may want success consciously, but the reality is that there may be deeper, darker forces that are plotting against us.
These forces lie in our subconscious mind and seem to poke their heads out at exactly the wrong times.
Learn about the experiment that I am doing to overcome my subconscious programming when it comes to wealth and having abundance. Being that it is an experiment, I don't know for sure if it will work.
But I am going to do it for 90 days and write about my results.
If you would like to try it for yourself, I would love to hear about how it worked for you. I also hope that this sparks other experiments that helps us become better traders.
One Of The Biggest Reasons Traders Fail
There is no doubt in my mind that the reason that we are not as successful as we could be is that on some level, we do not feel that we deserve success. This mentality can be traced back to our past experiences with money and how we were raised.
I'm not saying that you should blame your parents or your environment for your psychological programming. In fact, I'm telling you to do the opposite…take responsibility.
Yes, you did not control how you grew up, but you can control what you do about it.
Taking responsibility means doing everything possible to become the person you want to be. Changing my wealth programming led me to this experiment.
The Experiment in Wealth Reprogramming
This whole thing started as a result of my recent conversation with Walter Peters. I hadn't talked to Walter since I last interviewed him, but he actually wanted to interview me for his site this time around, so we got to talking. It was great to catch up with him and find out what he was up to.
He sent me a video from a webinar that he recently did and it addressed the limiting beliefs that can hold us back as traders. In the video, he mentioned how he used subliminal audio recordings to change his subconscious programming and that reminded me that I had been wanting to experiment with these types of recordings for awhile.
He was also nice enough to send me a copy of his book, Naked Forex. An autographed copy, no less…just another benefit of having a trading blog. It is an excellent book and I highly recommend it.
Anyway, back to the subliminal audio recordings. So after watching Walter's video, it really inspired me to finally find a good subliminal audio recording that I could listen to during the course of the day to possibly help me reprogram my subconscious.
I certainly didn't grow up rich and I know for a fact there there are some still some very deep seeded psychological stigmas attached to money that I need to get rid of. I know this because I am not happy with my bank account balance and I am not trading for a living yet.
If you are not happy with the amount of abundance coming into your life either, then you also could use some work in this area.
No special formulas or spreadsheets necessary, it is as simple as that.
So my first thought was to check out what Kelly Howell at Brain Sync had in this department. I've been using her meditation tracks for years and I really like them.
Luckily she does have a recording that addresses this issue and I bought it and downloaded it right away. It is called Manifest Prosperity and it actually consists of two separate tracks. One track is something that you can listen to all the time and the other one is something that you should listen to once or twice a day for 30 minutes.
The main reason that I chose this recording over others was because the website actually gives you the list of phrases that are being used. Since the messages are not consciously audible, it is good to know what I am putting into my head.
I don't want to wake up in a ditch somewhere one day because I was actually programmed to be a ninja assassin or something.
But seriously…unlike other tracks that I have listened to in the past, I did notice that I felt incredibly calm and happy immediately after I started listening to the recordings. I had never experienced anything like this before and this is what gives me confidence that I am on the right track.
So I am going to use June 1st as the starting point and end on August 30th. I will listen to this track as much as possible and measure my overall feelings and any increases in abundance that I have experienced during this time.
While I am working during the day, I usually listen to music, but this recording will take its place. I will also listen to it during my meditation sessions every day.
A Brief History Of Subliminal Messages
Now you may be wondering if subliminal messages really work or if they are just a gimmick. Nothing is going to work for everyone, all of the time. But the evidence is pretty strong and that is why I decided to give it a try.
The origins of subliminal messages are actually quite fascinating. A lot as been written about visual subliminal messages, especially in the area of advertising. There have been some very subtle and not-so-subtle ways of influencing people to buy products over the years and it is always fun to see what the marketing wizards come up with.
There have also been some conclusive studies done on the power of audio subliminal messages. For example, a study by Lloyd H. Silverman at NYU, showed that using subliminal messages to help people quit smoking resulted in a 65% success rate, compared to the control group, in which only 15% quit smoking.
If you want to find out more, check out this Wikipedia article.
Try It For Yourself
So if you think that this is interesting and you want to try it for yourself, then check out the audio track that I am using here. There are other ones out there, so you may want to experiment and see which ones work best for you.
Mark off 90 days on your calendar and write down how you feel before and after the experiment. If you would like to share your results with us, feel free to come back to this post and leave a comment. If not, then don't worry, just do it for yourself.
The most important thing to remember is that a lifetime of events have molded you into the person you currently are.
Therefore, do not expect to listen to the recordings one or two times and expect it to have any long lasting effect. You need to do this for a long period of time for it to really sink in. It may actually take more than 90 days, but let's use that as a starting point.
I will write another post sharing my experiences after my 90 days are up, so keep an eye out for it. I hope that you will join me so we can compare notes.
…and if you are looking for an alternative to that track, these might work better for you. They help you work on specific issues.
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