Are you the kind of person who feels butterflies when you’re about to execute a trade? Perhaps you’re a little nervous because you don’t have enough experience with trading, or maybe you are putting a little too much money on the line…you know it, and you feel the pressure. For some people, it may be a nervous temperament. But whatever the reasons, there may be times when you have difficulty executing a trade at the right moment. Accepting your limitations is a crucial step for mastering the inner game of trading, and if you have a problem with anxiety, it’s vital that you identify this issue and take steps to work around it. There are many approaches you can take.
Sometimes, feelings of anxiety result from the real world, rather than purely psychological, concerns. You may be putting extreme pressure on yourself to perform. You may be expecting a 20% profit on each trade, for example, when you don’t have the talent or market opportunities to guarantee such success. Or you may be risking money you can’t afford to lose.
In the end, you can only trade with the skills and financial resources you have available. It’s vital to gauge your resources and develop realistic expectations. A realistic approach to trading can do a lot to ease some of the pressure, feel carefree, and execute a trade more freely without self-reproach. As a thinking strategy, it’s always useful to tell yourself that you don’t have to be perfect. Don’t try to perform miracles. Do your best and accept what you can get. You’ll find that ironically when you give up control, you will feel free, creative, and able to execute trades with ease.
That said, some traders are so temperamentally anxious that they are paralyzed. They can’t pull the trigger no matter how good the market opportunity. They don’t trust their instincts and they are afraid to make a mistake. For these traders, a mechanical trading system may offer a solution. No system will completely free a person from the nervous uncertainty of not knowing how a trade will turn out, but it offers a sense of solace.
Trading systems aren’t perfect, and sometimes they are criticized since some systems are nothing more than get-rich-quick schemes. And even when a system is legitimate, no system works so well that you can just sit back and relax while profits roll in, month after month, year after year. No mechanical system is foolproof, and if it were, the creators probably would not want to release it to the public. But if you search carefully, you can find systems that actually do work, and if you have a problem controlling your emotions, and have trouble pulling the trigger, using a mechanical system will help you trade.
When your money is on the line, it can be difficult to execute a trade. Sometimes you can merely change the circumstances under which you trade, but other times you may need to change your approach entirely, such as by using a mechanical trading system, but there is no reason to let your initial anxiety about trading stop you from making trades. You can work around the problem, and eventually, make the profits you desire.