In one of our posts here, I talked about the idea of trading better by eliminating the thought of struggle. One perceptive blogger by the name of Hagen commented on our post with exciting insights.
Hagen argues that the complete removal of “struggle” in trading is impossible. He says that disregarding struggle only leads traders to postpone their anxiety. There will always be a struggle with each new trade. And it is impossible to ignore it. Hagen suggests that traders must confront the struggle and make use of it rather than trying to disregard it when it only resurfaces in the next possible opportunity. He shares his experience of getting anxious about trading and his utter lack of confidence in making profitable trades. Once he began trying to understand where his anxiety was coming from, he was able to deal with and make use of it.
I have to acknowledge that Hagen has indeed made valid counterpoints here. And I agree with what he is saying. The post we wrote only detailed one side of the coin, the one that attempts to turn struggle into confidence in trading. On the other hand, the one this article will be discussing is about using the struggle to learn about yourself. This, Hagen says, is the way to uncover the issues and anxieties that affect your trading. Thereby taking something negative and benefitting out of it.
How can you take your struggle as a way to deal with your anxieties in trading? First, you have to become aware of these feelings. Struggle, anxiety, and frustration—these are the emotions that control traders. Awareness is powerful, and it builds its momentum. When you become aware of these emotions, you can ask yourself: Do I feel like this because I think negatively or because of more profound issues affecting me? Usually, it’s a combination of the two. You may be limiting yourself in your thoughts, but also, you may have inevitable inadequacy in some trading skills. In the first case, you can choose to turn your mentality around and to try to fill yourself with more positivity. In the second case, you can use this awareness of your deficiencies to practice and learn the trading skills that you are not good at.
So, now that you are aware of these struggles, you can use this awareness to change how you experience things; then you can use this experience to pinpoint the areas that you need to improve upon. Once you get to the root of the issue, you can set out to deal with it—now with an empowered mentality.
That is how you deal with the struggle. Use it to move forward and progress. The particular areas that you are struggling with are often also the areas that you need to improve upon. I do not claim that it is an easy task—but as long as you are determined to address these issues, you will get to it. These issues may be inevitable inadequacy in specific trading skills, or only you limiting your trust in yourself.
The bottom line is, you need to transform your struggles and frustrations into something else. It can either be an altered, more positive outlook or an unraveling of the issues you need to work on. You will probably find that these two are interrelated and intertwined. In both cases, you benefit by enhancing your trading skills, and the struggle gets transformed into something else. Ultimately, you create your reality. You can choose to view it in a way that you can benefit from it. The only question is whether you are doing it unconsciously—do you stay stuck in negative thinking, or do you choose to take control of it through awareness and empowerment?
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