The Winning Attitude 


We all look to the Markets to make our money for us. “Make money while you sleep,” is the phrase that I learned right at the beginning of all of this. That was the attraction to the whole thing. Mark Douglas talks about this in his book, Trading in the Zone. 
        “There’s nothing wrong with learning about the Markets, but knowledge about the markets doesn’t create winning trades. Only the Winning Attitude does. It’s your responsibility to develop that attitude.” 


  So what does this mean? Don’t bother learning anything happening in the Market, or never read the News? No. It means, you have to take responsibility for your own trades, and your own trading plan. Instead of looking to the markets to make you money, you have to develop how you will use that knowledge to your advantage. There are many different people doing many different things. You have to have an edge, and execute based on that edge to take money out of the market. The Strat gives us the edge we need. Based on actionable signals, timeframe continuity, and broadening formations we develop a trade plan. This gets us a lot closer to the goal than most. We aren’t staring at daily charts looking for a wedge to break out. We know what buys and sells look like. We also always cut our losers quick, and keep our winners. This again, takes us so much closer to our goals. 


The Winning attitude consists of your self talk, expectancy to win, and action taken. Your self talk must be positive. When when you mess it up, you have to properly evaluate what happened, and move forward. “Eh, I took that reversal up on the 60, but there was no timeframe continuity to back it up. Ok, I got this.” “Ha, man I left a lot of money on the table. Ok, well it hit magnitude, and I took profit. Nothing wrong with that.”  


You must expect to win. If you don’t believe in yourself, you will never be able to reach your goals. Actionable signals is WHY we expect the price to move. This isn’t a crazy notion. This is a realistic view point. If it doesn’t go in force, we don’t touch it. If it does we hit it. If it reverses on us, we stop out for a small loss. 


After all the analysis and hours of looking at charts, you must take action. It’s not enough to say, I knew it would work, but you didn’t take the trade. You have to execute your trade plan. This is not about getting rich in a few trades. It’s about the hundreds of trades to come. You must trust in yourself. After your trades (good or bad) journal what went well, and what you could have done better. 


In summary, you don’t have to learn everything there is, nor should you ignore it all. It’s about developing a winning attitude based on an edge that you execute without hesitation. In the beginning always take small positions so there are small losses. Learn from your actions. You are your greatest teacher. You got this.