It is extremely important to have emotional stability when the working day starts and you are seated in front of a screen to take the decisions about what to buy and sell that will impact its capital. If someone feels that they are not emotionally ready, then that day is not the best to operate.
When I say Emotional Stability, I mean the ability of a person to keep stable and balanced. The emotional stability is one of the most important factors in a persons personality. It explains the tendency of some people to be more vulnerable when they find themselves in a stressful situation. It has been related to the mayor or minor enjoyment of various aspects of life and the capacity to handle it.
Event though the degree of emotional stability in a person is usually consistent trough large periods of time, it is not rare that there are stages of minor and mayor stability, thanks to past experiences and that the stress that person is submitted.
Here is where one must pay attention to detect these stages of minor emotional stability, to not operate in those days. Because when someone is trading, this usually comes with a certain natural stress because real money is being operated with. Losing this money is very stressful, because it is hard earned money. In those conditions is where the real emotional conflict appears on how to operate in the market.
With emotions come all sort of feelings. During the trading there can be rage and disappointment. Also, when you try to earn all your loses back, believing your are very good in all this, being arrogant in the market and operating with a mayor exposure, ignoring the risk managing parameters, it´s time be aware to stop all these emotions.
It is important and it has helped me get a good result, first of all, clear the mind off of certain issues that can interrupt the trading and could affect the general activity of the person.
Reading about this topics, investigating how to further the emotional stability throughout the day, not only in trading, but also in any activity that you may be doing, helps to live the moment and pay more attention.
There are two books that I find really interesting, I consult them when I don’t feel emotionally balanced and feel far away from my objectives in life. I go to this books to check out their chapters and review whatever is missing for me to find that balance that will let me feel centered and in the present.
The first book is called “A Path With Hearth”, it is a book the the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) recommends. I have thanks to a friends who went there and I thank him because it has been very helpful in a spiritual level. The book in Spanish is called “Camino con Corazon” and it is written by Jack Kornfield. It can be found in Amazon. The Kindle version costs about U$S10. It speaks about the vicissitudes the human being has to face with his ego along his life
The other book that I want to talk about is called “Letting Go” made by the doctor David Hawkings. In spanish, the title means “Dejar ir”. It is an excellent book about how someone can let go of their mind and everything that is accumulated needlessly in it.
Hawkings writes about the emotions. He talks about how to identify them, watch what cause these emotions in our body, then he names them to keep them in mind. When someone has an emotion, that emotion manifest in the body. You can identify that feeling and name it so that your mind knows what it is. Every emotion in our brain creates millions of thought. You validate them and gives them entity, accepting that the emotions belongs in our mind.
As far as the individual can identify the emotion, for example, if someone is anger because of something, immediately come together an infinite number of thoughts that reinforce that anger, this can be stopped.
But, if someone is paying attention and is able to name the emotion, identify it and does not get manipulated by the emotion, all the baggage of thoughts that overwhelm the emotion, start to disappear and a feeling of immediate relief starts to come. Because it is the person itself who lets this millions of thoughts live inside its brain making harm and controlling the mood and losing your emocional centre.
I am not an expert in this topic. I am sharing my personal experiences about the control of emotions. This is why I mention these books. The idea itself is not be controlled by our emotions. This is why it is so important to pay attention on what is happening to me right now.
In the case of trading, there are various emotions that one must work on it to keep stable during the working day. What is important is to be aware and present on what is happening at that time, with a 100% of alertness on your methodology, not to be dominated by various different emotions that could appear throughout the day by news of the changing market. But if we remain 100% in our methodology beyond the news and the ups and downs of the market, we are making a step forward to win over this business.
1 Kornfield, Jack, A Path with Heart, (Camino con Corazón, título en español), Editorial: Bantam Books, 1993
2 Hawkins, David R., Letting Go, The Pathway of Surrender, (Dejar ir, título en español), Editorial: Hay House, 2012