Trading on Target: How to Cultivate a Winner's State of Mind

WHAT IS DONE MAY ACTUALLY BE UNDONE (SOMETIMES)

Once you understand how the original motivation-sapping image is created, you will understand the process of reversing those steps by replacing the negative image with one that promotes feelings of worthiness, self-assurance, and the resilience needed to handle setbacks.

However, there is one important caveat. This process requires that you be motivated enough to do the work and follow through. Externally motivated people often lack the necessary level of self-regard to put forth the effort, and they often lack the optimism to keep them going when the outcome looks distant and difficult to achieve. For some traders, this Catch-22 is too difficult to overcome by themselves. If you feel that you cannot handle this process by yourself, it is a wise trader who seeks out help and support.

Stage One—Changing Your Negative Self-Perceptions

Here are the nine major steps that are required to reverse specific negative self-images that create external motivations:

1. Identify the negative image. This begins the process and may be the hardest to accomplish on your own. What picture do you carry around of an experience or situation that makes you feel powerless? You may have many of these, but you want to start with the earliest one. Like a tangled net, if you pick out the prime thread and unravel it, the others will soon follow.

2. Re-experience the experience. Even if the experience is a really painful one, it is important that you get in touch ...