One of the most difficult concepts for beginning stock traders to wrap their heads around is a concept of stock trading discipline. Merriam-Webster describes this as “orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior”. Merriam-Webster also provides us with another simple definition of discipline and that is that of “self-control”.
So you may ask yourself why is discipline so essential to successful stock trading? Discipline is not just essential for successful stock trading, it is essential for success in any field of endeavor. Anyone who has ever achieved mastery in any field has exercised massive self-control.
In stock trading, discipline is necessary keep you on a successful path. Believe it or not there are still people who have all of the essentials such as adequate working capital, a good stock trading plan and system, but still fail to be successful in stock trading. You see it doesn't really matter how much money you have or how good your plan is if you don't stick to your plan. Now you and I may think to ourselves why in the world would anyone deviate from it perfectly good plan, especially one that is currently generating trading profits? That's a good question and one that will need to explore a little bit further to dig deeper into the heart of the importance of discipline in the markets.
It is true that many beginning stock traders suffer from what is known as “shiny object syndrome”. In trading, “shiny object syndrome”, refers to the tendency for new traders to jump from one trading system or strategy to the next, to the next, and so forth and so on. It's easy to understand why beginning traders can get so easily distracted because of all of the latest greatest tools, tips, and trading techniques that seem to pop up almost constantly. Far too often what happens is that traders who jump from one technique to another never give anyone particular strategy an opportunity to work. As a result some become very bitter and disillusioned and develop the false belief that successful stock trading is simply a myth. Nothing could be further from the truth. Successful stock trading is only a myth to those who do not exercise their discipline and who have not properly planned to succeed.
The moral of the story is that once you find something that works there really isn't a logical reason to stop using it… even if you have found a better stock trading system. There is no reason that you cannot trade more than one profitable stock trading system, but there certainly isn't any reason to give up on something that works. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating stacking system on top of system on top of system on top of system for beginning traders. Beginning traders should take their time and get profitable and confident with one system before they move on to using multiple systems. Trading multiple systems is reserved for experienced traders who have adequate capital to trade those systems as well as a thorough knowledge of how the systems interact.
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