One of the obstacles any trader has to overcome if he/she wants to move to the next level is muscle memory.
For me, it is like trying to improve my golf swing. I take a lesson but have so much muscle memory built into my swing that trying to change is an uphill battle. I make a change in my swing but the more I play the more muscle memory takes over. I find myself reverting to what feels comfortable, which is my old swing. It takes commitment and discipline to make a lasting change.
It is no different in trading. You learn something new but have to fight muscle memory and old habits to put it into practice.
Now I can give you a list of tips or strategies you might use but let’s focus on just one It is a ‘tip” you may have seen me mention before but I cannot emphasize enough that it can make the difference between success and failure.
I call it the “hard trade is more often than not the right trade.”
What does this mean?
It means the nard to find a good entry forex trade (with the flow) is more often than not the right trade while the easy-to-enter trade (looks cheap/expensive so you buy/sell) it is often the sucker bet.
I am sure we have all been guilty of trying to catch a falling knife because it looks overdone only to see it continue moving against you. One reason is that the farther a currency or any asset moves, the harder it is to find a good entry-level where you can place a reasonable stop. Human nature then takes over, which is to try and pick a bottom or top prematurely, often with negative results.
How do you change muscle memory?
So, the question is how do you change muscle memory and start taking what looks like the hard trade in real-time but the easy trade after the fact?
One way is to take a deep breath rather than acting emotionally by trying to pick a bottom or top before there is some technical reason to do so. It is like taking a step back before acting so you can see the price action clearly.
I call it stepping out of body). You will be amazed at how losses from sucker bet trades (even if small but fatal if large) can accumulate and impact your P&L and capital.
Another step is to find a system or strategy that gets you in sync trading with the momentum and tells you when the move has run out of steam. If the purpose of this report is to publicize The Amazing Trader, I would be encouraging you to subscribe.
However, the aim is to make you aware of a trader’s tendency to look to pick bottoms or tops (most want to be swing traders) = the easy trade rather than fighting muscle memory to do so and take the hard (to find a good entry) trade.
Like my golf swing and breaking old habits, changing muscle memory is not easy but worth the effort to do so.
This only scratches the surface but if you find yourself with muscle memory as described above, the first step is awareness. The second step is to keep fighting the tendency and see if it makes a difference in your trading.
Feel free to contact jay@global-view.com with any questions or comments.
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