New Years Resolutions: Healthy Habits for Daytrading
I wanted to address something very overlooked in trading. Often so many are interested in what system/methods, money management, brokers and ect ect. But overlook some other very important things that make up your daily trading routine. Such as HABITS, yes habits because we are creatures of them. If you have good habits you are likely to have good results and vice versa. In this area there are many things you can overlook as you are busy on just about every other aspect of trading and so on. I will share with you how I start my day below.
Lotz of Botz Daily Routine
1st – I wake up, this is #1 as you need to do this if you don’t then you are likely dead and trading will not matter much to you, unless you are real binary options hack then even that might not stop you. Zombie trading 101…
2nd – After 5-10 mins of laying in bed staring at the ceiling sometimes more, I will Stretch and do some mild yoga like exercises to help start my day off on the right track. After exercising I will sit in a meditative position for a few minutes to clear my mind fully and be open to data and information to start my trading day.
3rd – I go and get a glass of water and maybe some fruit to refresh and start my body off in a well balanced way. “Note I will keep the glass of water full though out my trading day next to me.” Water will keep you balanced and flowing ;)
4th – I sit and stare at the charts for 10-30 minutes doing nothing but watching to see how my ALGOs are acting in relation the market movement or lack there of.
5th – I then go into planning/objective mode off the information the market is giving me as to the % of leverage I will use the types of trades I am looking to take and what instruments I wish to trade and when I wish to trade them.
Do you really want to look back on your trading day and say “oh I was stressed so I smoked a bunch and drank lots of coffee which made me take 52 trades because I kept revenge trading from all the stress from having coffee and cigs while trading made me a roller coaster to deal with that, hell I started drinking vodka and felt better about losing my trades so then bet it all and was up 200% before I blew my account on the next trade then had a blackout to which I woke up with a potato skin on my left eye and Haagen daz on my neck, at least you hope it was Haagen daz!” The stress from dealing with chaos which is what the market is in probabilities instead of certainties, which our mind needs on a cognitive basis because of primal survival instincts ie {Not being eaten by a animal or killed by a competitor while engaged in a form of combat, which is what trading is.}
Examples of what to DO :-D
1) Stretch after waking up
2) Meditate after stretching for a few minutes by siting in a calm relaxed state on the floor and then just think of nothing.
3) Have a glass of water to start your day maybe some fruit or juice too.
4) Watch the market for the first 20-30 mins to gauge the activity. Never be in a rush to trade. First listen and try to hear what the market is telling you.
5) Get out of your chair and stretch for a few minutes every hour.
6) Go for a walk for 10-15 minutes a few times a day. Where you go is up to you preferably not somewhere you might get mugged or eaten by wild animals. It helps clear your mind and is a form of exercise as well. If you are being chased by muggers or dangerous animals it can be good cardio too! Just don’t let them catch you :)
7) Drink water through out the day.
8) do a mid day assessment of how you are trading/feeling and plan on how from that information you will do the rest of the day.
9) Try to keep your meals smallish though out the day. One giant meal will tend to slow you down as your body will need a disproportionate amount of energy to process it which may make you lethargic/unfocused.
10) While in trades I sometimes will do breathing exercises to offset any emotional reaction I might have while waiting for expiry. This will help keep you in a calm state while you objectively focus on the market and will help offset any negative emotional reactions that are likely subjective. If you feel a trade or you are stressed while in trades, this can be very helpful in leveling you out during trading.
11) Remember to do this daily as if you think about it these are all things that help you develop good trading habits through good habits applied to yourself which just makes you more able to think logically which is objective vs emotionally which is subjective.
Examples of what NOT to do :-(
Coffee is an ACCELERANT – The health effects of caffeinated products are arguable so its the least destructive of the ones I list here. But if you think about it from a trading perspective it can be very destructive and very unseemingly so. Imagine your perspective is effected to be active instead of being in alignment with the market so you decide to take trades based on an emotional feeling and well that is just a subjective mess of self destruction waiting to happen. You simply have put yourself unknowingly out of balance all because of a little java bean LoL. So the next time you feel like you made trades for no reason or overtraded take a look at that little pool of black goodness because coffee can be very expensive in more ways then one ;)
Smoking as a way to alleviate stress as noted above smoking is a common drug as it disrupts the neural pathways causing an temporary effect of a salubrious sense of wellbeing but ironically over time that is the exact opposite of what it is doing to your body. Below is a picture of Allen from binaryoptionsitm. I have never seen him once with out a cigarette in his hand. I fear the chaos of the markets has turned this guy into a chain smoker which would make sense if you think about the effects of dealing with the stress of the markets on a daily basis in a non-cognative way. A way to overcome this is to follow the guidelines I set out above and develop healthy habits that give you greater clarity and control in an objective manner. Thanks Allen for being a good sport! Oh and STOP SMOKING!
Drinking as a way to alleviate stress, now this is one of the better ways as to offset the stress of trading as well when you are drunk maybe you will say no big deals whats a few $1000 dollars on a trade hell lets just go for it bet it all I am the king of the world nobody can beat me WoOo HoOo! Then the next morning you wake up hung over and broke. Now thats what a I call a fun drinking game! Alcohol will slow everything down and was used in the old says as an antistatic, which means it is meant to knock you out from dealing with pain. So is your trading painful to you? If so you might want to stop trading because that is a very bad sign that something is not right. But this is another self destructive example of something on the surface that has the complete opposite effect of what is intended.
This poor Noob was doing a video review of optionbit.com before he gave up on trading from a losing streak and decided to invest in selling stuff on Ebay @ 2x markups rofl. I am not sure he is even doing that now, he might have moved on to becoming a male prostitute giving, errr well I won’t speculate but we can see his path is flawed and he is 100% unaware of it. watch his videos they are hilarious by the way. If nothing else it shows the subjective unrealistic nature of a Noob.
“In conclusion I have listed above a path to follow. But know this, every wise warrior knows there is a difference between knowing a path and walking a path. It all begins with one step, for it matters not as much where you are but more so where you are headed…”