These are my own experiences as a performance coach:

Working with different people is always so interesting as each individual is so unique and handles stressful situations differently. I think we can all agree that trading can be stressful at times – especially when losing money.

One thing that all traders have in common is that they want to be successful and make consistent profits, but we tend to forget that trading is not this get rich quick set up. There are a lot of outside forces to take into consideration when trading such as:

• Do you trust your strategies?
• Do you trust yourself?
• Are you letting bad habits and emotions get the best of you?

As a performance coach I see clients that are willing to work, not only on trading but also on themselves in order to become a successful trader. We take for granted how much we often hold ourselves back without even noticing, and we tend to forget that, as with most things in life, you need to put in a bit of effort if you want results.

Which leads me to my next question, why don’t clients do the work? Simply, it is usually due to FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). People want to make money fast without putting in much effort (I think we all do) but whether you have been trading for years or are still learning, the work still needs to be applied.

This reminds me of a behavioural psychologist called Albert Bandura, he had identified four crucial processes in observational learning (observational learning is learning through watching and then repeating what was observed). Bandura stated that the four key processes of learning are:

• Attention (to learn through observation)
• Retention (being able to store and remember this newly learned skill for however long)
• Reproduction (repeating what has been learned)
• Motivation (what is the reason why you wanted to learn this new skill)

The key part that stands out here is the motivation.

What drives you to become a successful trader?

Why do you trade?

The answer will usually be to make money.

Do you think that you can be a successful trader if you let stress, anxiety, emotions and bad habits get in the way of being successful? Probably not.

Ryan Mowatt, The Performance Coach