Solution Focused Trading
There are traders who's performance are getting better and better each month, there're traders who are progressing slow but steadily. There're this last group that are still struggling.
FB is one of the key place to learn from fellow traders beside coming to class. Open up your mind and eyes and you will see very distinct character from those successful traders (though their POT). They know their strengths!
There are three key phases to adopting this solution focused approach:
1. Identify your strengths
2. Utilise your strengths
3. Focus on, and build on your strengths
Develop and play to your strengths first and foremost, then notice what happens, what is left over in terms of ‘weaknesses’ and then decide to what level they need to be developed , if at all, so that they are not ‘hurting you’.
Identify Strength
Think back to three great trades, trading days or trading decisions (these could be times when you have reduced losses or been disciplined as much as the times when you made big money) that you have made. Recall the events in as much detail as possible. What do you notice? What were you thinking, feeling, doing? What helped you to achieve those successes? Is there anything in common? What do those experiences say about you as a trader? Write down your responses and insights.
Utilising Strength
Once you have identified your key strengths, the next stage is to ensure that you are fully utilising them and leveraging them. One important way of doing this is to ensure that they are reflected in your trading, that you are where possible hitting the sweetspot, trading at the center of your own personality and strengths and the markets and strategies that are most inline and supported by them.
Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you to identify your trading sweetspot:
• What are your strengths?
• What do you enjoy doing?
• What are you most interested in, and motivated to do?
• What do you do best in the markets?
• Where have you been most profitable?
Of course the market conditions, your strategies and indeed even yourself will not remain constant over time, and so staying in the sweetspot , or close to it, becomes a dynamic process. One of the keys to longevity in the market is the ability to be able to stretch and flex, both in the short term and in the long term, to be able to adapt to changing conditions and keep performing.
Focusing on & Building on Strength
Like any good performance behaviour, repetition is the key to a habit and an integral part of your trading. It is all too easy to drift away from a focus on trading to your strengths and becoming overly focussed on areas of perceived weakness, so here are a few key questions that you can ask yourself on a daily/regular basis to help you to continue to build on your best performances.
Pre-Trading:
‘How will I utilise my strengths and be at my best today?’
Post Trade:
‘What went well with that trade?’
End of Day:
‘What did I do well today that I can build on tomorrow?’
Asking yourself these questions may feel strange to begin with as they are run counter to most of our natural responses which tend to be little evaluation when things have gone well, and delving into more significant analysis and introspection when our performance is not going as well as we would like. Adopting any new behaviour can leave us with that uncomfortable (i.e. unfamiliar) feeling, and our natural response is often to head back to the comfort of our old ways, however persisting with these questions and indeed with the solution focused approach can have a very positive impact on your trading performance and profitability.
