CHAPTER 15
Gaining Confidence
Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
—Dale Carnegie
Imagine you have the following:
- A trading system you are comfortable trading.
- A trading system with a very high win rate.
- An incredible amount of money to trade your system.
- All the time you need to trade.
- The best computer and a fast internet connection.
Is this all that you need to trade successfully? Will you find consistent profits with only these things? The answer is no. You need much more than this to trade successfully. To find consistent profits you need to have confidence. In fact, confidence is the most important ingredient for trading success. Confidence will help you profit with an average trading system, but without confidence you will be unable to find success, even with a brilliant trading system.
You will find that there are two different types of confidence problems for forex traders: (1) a lack of confidence in the trading system, or (2) a lack of confidence in yourself.
THE ORIGIN OF CONFIDENCE ISSUES
All traders will have losing streaks. Losing streaks may lead to feelings of inadequacy and disparity. However, if the trading system is a valid winning trading system, it has been tested, and is profitable over the long run, there is probably nothing wrong with the system. Most of the time, a losing streak is due to the wrong application of the trading system. ...
