Motivation.
The endless mystery.
It is an endless mystery for some people.
Why are some people motivated to do something and others are not?
Why are some motivated to learn and grow and others are not?
Today we shall tackle this mystery and bring some much needed clarity.
In my life there have been generally two kinds of trading motivation used.
They go into the categories of Positive “Towards” Motivation, and Negative “Away From” Motivation.
Positive “Towards” Motivation:
People who have this positive “towards” motivation typically are very enthusiastic, passionate, loving about what they do. Sometimes they don’t even need an alarm clock to wake them up. They have an internal alarm, where the body and mind just know when its time to wake up and they wake up. They have a “go-getter” attitude where they wake up very early in the morning, ready to go. They are ready to attack the day with all the enthusiasm and energy they can muster.
They love what they do. And as the saying goes, if you love what you do you never have to work a day in your life.
They are very goal and vision oriented, constantly pushing towards their trading objectives, whether it is a double digit percentage return month, or a triple digit percentage return year.
They see themselves accomplishing these goals, and are happy both on the journey there, and happy after they accomplish their goal. And happy to target the next goal.
Emotions such as love, joy and enthusiasm are released by this kind of positive motivation.
There is also a category of “DARK”, “towards,” motivation. For example some successful people for a certain point in their career, had people criticize them, told them they were never going to amount to much, etc. So the individual develops a burning desire to prove them wrong. This is “towards” motivation as you seek achievement to prove them wrong. Though it is a little bit on the “darker” side, which is alright some of the time. This can release emotions such as anger, feistiness, etc. They are not exactly always loving. It’s alright to have this kind of motivation at a certain stage in your life. You can gain a lot of energy by the feeling that it is you against all the people who criticized you. I had a very large dose of this motivation in my first 5-6 years. Then I switched to more love, joy and enthusiasm. Though I can switch back into the anger and feisty side if I desire to.
The only potential downside to this kind of motivation is that a person may be so busy chasing the positive goals, that they don’t give any thought to any problems that might crop up and what to do about them. So some “away from” motivation can be healthy. For example, you don’t want to be chasing a great new trade, when another trade in your portfolio is about to lose a lot of value because you were careless. So yes, be predominantly in the positive “towards” motivation. Have well over 50% of your motivation coming from that joy, enthusiasm, etc, but also have a little bit of this next kind of motivation…
Negative “Away From” Motivation:
People with this kind of motivation tend to be trading and desire to trade to escape from some kind of pain. They want to succeed as a trader and if they succeed, they avoid some kind of pain.
Maybe you have been burned by a stock broker, or following tips off someone. You want to avoid that happening again.
Maybe you lost money in index funds during a recession and want to avoid that – via being a forex trader or an active trader. Which can offer protection from recessions if you now how to trade.
Take an example of a business executive that plays out scenarios of everything that can go wrong and sees what they can reasonably do about this is “Away From” motivation. They are trying to avoid these problems from happening. They could be chasing new business, but perhaps sometimes seeing everything that can go wrong with current setup can be advantageous.
Some companies on Wall Street could have used this kind of motivation back in the housing bubble. Some companies were creating and bundling all these mortgage derivatives, spending lots of motivation to get new business, etc. And very few of them realized that the market was going to crash and some of the derivatives they had on their books were going to be toxic. They got so intoxicated with creating and buying more and more derivatives, that they didn’t seem to wonder if they should slow down and see if what they are holding on their balance sheet was a good idea or not.
SAME THING for a trader playing out many scenarios of what can happen to their trading position. They are using “away from” motivation, to help them avoid a bigger than expected loss. A trader would prefer that the market does not gap against them. So they have a dose of this healthy paranoia, healthy fear that spurs them into construction action.
The away from motivation to help them avoid a losing year. As one of the key principles of a trader is: Protect precious capital. Don’t lose money. Never forget these two rules. So this is “away” from motivation.
I’ll give you an example of my “away from” motivation in play in my trading. A month or two before Brexit happened in June 2016, I instituted a rule to avoid all trading in GBP related currency pairs. This was because I recognized I did not have an edge in trading that situation. I knew the market could gap 500 pips, 1000 pips or more either way, so I wanted to avoid that happening. Sure I could be on the right side of the move, but I could also be on the wrong side of that move. Best not to take risk in GBP related currency pairs. So I instituted that rule and when Brexit happened, I was not caught in any bad currency trade positions. And that rule of not trading in GBP related pairs still exists to this day. I have successfully protected myself from a situation I did not have an edge in.
Similar situation with the EUR/CHF before the SNB removed the 1.2000 floor in January 2015. Several months before I put in a rule that no going long EUR/CHF was allowed. Since there was virtually zero prospect for price appreciation as the global macro was so strong to the bearish side, the price stayed near 1.2000. So I put in a rule no going long EUR/CHF. So when the SNB removed the 1.2000 floor, I did not get hurt. And that rule has stayed in place to this day. I even expanded it to no trading long or short in any CHF related pairs.
Those two rules – no trading in GBP and CHF related currency pairs, have stayed in place until today, helping me protect a lot of money. All because of healthy paranoia, healthy fear. There were still plenty of other currencies I could trade that I actually had an advantage in – such as EUR and JPY.
If you want to get BOTH the positive “towards” motivation and the “away from” motivation going in your life to boost trading returns, then check out the Order Flow Mastery Course. It is a complete, top-to-bottom, one-stop shop for your trading needs.
Click here for more information <<<
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