HypnoTrading_ A practical guide to using hypnosis and NLP to improve your trading performance 9780857195036, 9780857195043

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HypnoTrading A practical guide to using hypnosis and NLP to improve your trading performance

Catherine Stott BSc, DHP, Clinical Hypnotherapist

HARRIMAN HOUSE LTD 18 College Street Petersfield Hampshire GU31 4AD GREAT BRITAIN Tel: +44 (0)1730 233870 Email: [email protected] Website: www.harriman-house.com First published in Great Britain in 2016 Copyright © Catherine Stott The right of Catherine Stott to be identified as the author has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988. Print ISBN: 978-0-85719-503-6 eBook ISBN: 978-0-85719-504-3 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library. All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publisher. This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without the prior written consent of the Publisher. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that information in this book is accurate, no liability can be accepted for any loss incurred in any way whatsoever by any person relying solely on the information contained herein. No responsibility for loss occasioned to any person or corporate body acting or refraining to act as a result of reading material in this book can be accepted by the Publisher, by the Author, or by the employers of the Author.

CONTENTS About the author Preface Introduction Part One. An Introduction to Therapeutic Techniques Chapter One. Hypnosis, Psychotherapy and the Trader Part Two. Trading Challenges And How To Deal With Them Chapter Two. Common Client Issues Chapter Three. Understanding Your Trading Challenges Chapter Four. Coping With Losing Trades Chapter Five. Stress and Anxiety Chapter Six. Negative Self-Talk Chapter Seven. The Role of Fear Part Three. Personal Development Chapter Eight. Visualisation – Aiming for Success Chapter Nine. Affirmations Chapter Ten. Modelling Success Chapter Eleven. Boosting Confidence and Motivation Chapter Twelve. Mental Preparation and Discipline Chapter Thirteen. Your Future Chapter Fourteen. Finding a Suitable Hypnotherapist HypnoTrading courses

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Catherine Stott studied at the University of Reading, where she obtained a degree in Psychology. She then went to work as a human factors psychologist at a science and technology company. Her focus was predominantly on training and designing training systems for human use. Following this she trained as a Clinical Hypnotherapist at the Royal Berkshire College of Clinical Hypnosis (RBCCH), obtaining a Diploma in Hypnotherapy and Psychotherapy. Catherine is fully trained in hypnotherapy, suggestion therapy, hypnoanalysis, psychotherapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). She is a Licentiate of the Association of Professional Hypnosis and Psychotherapy (APHP), a member of the National Council of Hypnotherapy (NCH) and one of the first hypnotherapists in the UK to become registered with the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CHNC). In addition to this she is also a member of the British Psychological Society. Catherine first began working with traders in 2010 and has developed an indepth knowledge of trading psychology as well as how hypnotherapy, NLP and EFT can help traders with the challenges they face.

PREFACE What this book covers Trading is a minefield of psychological and emotional challenges that are often underestimated. It is usually only once you have started trading that you realise how mentally and emotionally involved you become and notice the complex relationship that develops between the trader and the trade. This book provides you with a set of tools to help you deal with some of the common psychological issues in trading. You will be introduced to hypnotherapy, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and Havening as three key therapies that can help you change your mindset and how you cope with the challenges of trading and the trading environment. Specifically, this book covers four main overarching challenges that traders face: 1. Coping with losing trades 2. Stress and anxiety 3. Negative self-talk 4. The role of fear. It also looks at areas for self-development: 1. Using visualisation for success 2. How to write affirmations 3. Modelling success 4. Boosting motivation and confidence 5. Mental preparation and discipline 6. Building your future

Who this book is for

This book is for all traders who want to change how they trade and improve their success. Whether you are a novice trader who wants to trade well from the start or an experienced trader who wants to tweak your self-belief or motivation, this book is for you. It will be useful for traders who want to: 1. Improve their trading consistency 2. Stick to their trading plan 3. Overcome fear 4. Learn how to deal with losing money 5. Take the leap from part-time trader to full-time trader 6. Trade with a calm and positive mindset 7. Have better mental preparation for trading 8. Reduce how much they lose when trading 9. Have better decision-making skills

How this book is structured This book is broken down into three sections. The first section will introduce you to three types of therapy: hypnotherapy, NLP and Havening. You will learn the basic concepts and theories behind each and the basic steps needed for self-hypnosis. The second section outlines common trading issues and then moves on to cover in depth four key areas of challenge for traders. These are: coping with losing trades, stress and anxiety, negative self-talk and fear. The final section contains more general self-help discussion. Specifically, it covers using visualisation, how to write affirmations, building confidence and motivation, modelling success, mental preparation and discipline. The book concludes with advice on how to choose a hypnotherapist should you want more help. Within each chapter, you will find a number of activities and techniques that encompass hypnotherapy, NLP or Havening. These are designed to help you address the challenges that have been identified. You will be

guided through each technique step by step so that you can practise it and use it correctly. The techniques are designed to provide you with a toolkit of psychotherapeutic approaches that you can use as often as required to help you create the changes you want. You will find that some suit you more than others and you will learn how to adapt the techniques outlined to address a variety of areas, both within and outside of trading.

How to use this book To make the best use of the book, firstly read through each chapter and each activity before you start. Make sure you give yourself plenty of time. There is no need to rush and, although it will be tempting to move straight to the chapters that you think apply to you the most, work through each one in turn. You can repeat each activity and technique as often as you want or need to. Once you have completed all the activities you can then dip into the book in the future, using the relevant techniques when needed. Once you are familiar with the book and the activities, you’ll be able to bookmark those that you want to return to so you can practise and use them as often as you need to. Within each chapter, you will see the following: Text in italics indicates an activity where you should make notes. Perhaps use a notepad specifically for the work you complete in this book; it will help you to keep all of your notes in one place. TIPS! Specific tips are displayed in bold. Techniques Practical techniques are displayed in boxes. They are written in a straightforward, step-by-step manner.

INTRODUCTION

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ou’ve picked up this book and you are flicking through it. Clearly, you think you need some help breaking down some of the psychological challenges of trading. Do you lack discipline? Are you annoyed at yourself for letting fear get in the way? Perhaps you have a great trading strategy but for whatever reason you don’t follow it. Perhaps you can’t stop yourself from exiting trades too early and you experience both elation that you have made a profit, and frustration you didn’t stay in as long as you intended and missed out. If you have these problems when trading then HypnoTrading can help you. HypnoTrading is not your typical trading psychology textbook. It goes a step further than describing problems – it guides you step-by-step through a number of self-help solutions. You will discover the power of hypnosis and how to use self-hypnosis with neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and Havening, a modern psycho-sensory technique, to master your trading issues, help you make better trading decisions, perform in a calm and consistent manner, and go on to improve your trading life. I have been working with traders since 2010, when I was first approached by a trader who wanted to use hypnotherapy to help control his reactions to losing trades and improve his levels of discipline. Working with this client, I became intrigued by trading issues and the similarities to gambling, and I soon knew that I wanted to work with traders as a specialism. From this point on, I began to develop my knowledge of trading psychology. I quickly realised there was a common set of themes that seemed to appear in my clinic as I saw more and more traders: discipline (or lack thereof), fear, stress and how you react to losing trades, to name but a few. I realised the huge number of home-based traders out there in the world and the demand for my services began to grow. Having seen the brilliant effects that hypnotherapy has had on my trader clients, the next logical step was for me to write this book, to bring

hypnotherapy and NLP techniques to a wider audience of traders. I want to pass on some of my knowledge and make hypnotherapy accessible to more traders. This is a practical book. It is all very well knowing, for example, that you experience anxiety whilst trading, but this book shows you how to identify those anxieties and their impact and how to overcome them. This is hugely important for every trader because the psychological elements of trading are well known and well documented, but there is very little material that deals with how to develop yourself psychologically to deal with trading and achieve better results. The aim of this book is to help you develop your success as a trader, become more consistent in your approach to trading and address larger psychological elements within trading. You can find out more about me and my practice in Wokingham, Berkshire, on my website: HypnoTrading.co.uk

PART ONE. AN

INTRODUCTION TO THERAPEUTIC TECHNIQUES

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rading is full of complex emotional states. There is uncertainty, lack of control, volatility and fast-paced change to contend with. It is no wonder many people find this difficult emotionally. HypnoTrading offers a number of approaches that you can use to help overcome the psychological barriers holding you back or influencing how you trade. In Part One, you will find an introduction to the various techniques that you will become acquainted with as you progress through the book. This introduction does not provide you with an in-depth understanding of each therapy – you don’t really need that in order to use the techniques successfully. The intention is to provide you with an insight into the therapies so you understand the basic principles, why these techniques can work for you and how they can help to improve your trading style, techniques and ultimately success. You will learn: 1. A brief history of hypnosis and hypnotherapy, what it is and how to self-hypnotise. 2. An overview of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and how this can be combined with hypnosis to improve your trading. 3. An introduction to Havening, a relatively new psycho-sensory technique that can be used to cope with stress, anxiety and getting over psychological blockers and losing trades. 4. How these techniques can be used by traders to deal with the issues they face.

CHAPTER ONE. Hypnosis,

Psychotherapy and the Trader Introduction

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his chapter begins by introducing you to hypnosis and hypnotherapy, what they are and how these techniques help traders. You will need to understand these basic elements to use the techniques outlined later in the book. The following topics are covered: 1. Hypnosis and hypnotherapy 2. The science behind hypnosis 3. A brief history of hypnosis and hypnotherapy 4. Recent scientific advances in hypnotherapy 5. Self-hypnosis 6. Psychotherapy and NLP 7. Havening: unblocking emotional barriers 8. How hypnotherapy and psychotherapy help traders

1. Hypnosis and hypnotherapy There is much mystery, myth and scepticism surrounding hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Hypnotherapists have worked hard to ensure hypnotherapy is reputable, governed and understood. Hypnosis is a naturally arising state of mind that occurs in many people on a daily basis, for example during a monotonous drive on the motorway, when watching a movie or when we drive a familiar route and can’t remember the journey afterwards. At these times when we are deeply relaxed or highly focused, our conscious mind goes into a neutral state and

our subconscious processing takes over. This means our subconscious mind is more accessible. Hypnosis itself is not a therapy, although one could argue that the relaxing properties of hypnosis are very healing. The therapy side comes when a trained therapist works with the subconscious part of the mind to treat various emotional, physical and mental ailments and create beneficial changes in a person. Once direct access to the subconscious mind is possible through hypnosis, certain therapeutic techniques, such as NLP, can then be used to initiate change within the client. This is more effective than using the techniques alone, because you are working with the subconscious part of your mind, which is the part of you that stores the rules of your environment and your beliefs, desires and attitudes. Recent research has revealed that hypnotherapy is a tool that has many useful applications – so much so that the NHS now employ hypnotherapists, universities fund research into hypnotherapy and mental health charities deploy hypnotherapists to work with various mental health issues. In short, hypnotherapy is an evidence-based therapy that has changed many lives and it could change yours too.

2. The science behind hypnosis There is much curiosity surrounding what actually happens when someone is in a hypnotic state. There is a scientifically proven change in brain activity in a state of hypnosis. Extensive research using electroencephalographs (EEGs) demonstrates a boost in the lower frequency brainwaves associated with dreaming and sleep, and a reduction in higher frequency brainwaves associated with being awake. Neurological research shows that activity in the right hemisphere of the brain is increased during hypnosis – this is the side of the brain associated with the subconscious mind. At the same time, the activity in the left hemisphere (the logical, conscious side of the brain) is reduced. This

supports the concept of the subconscious becoming more accessible through hypnosis.

3. A brief history of hypnosis and hypnotherapy Historically, hypnosis or various forms of it are well documented. For example, there are ancient Egyptian documents suggesting mass hypnotic states during certain ceremonies and hypnosis-like descriptions of healing in Hindu texts. Western history marks Franz Mesmer as an important person in the history of hypnosis in the 18th century. Mesmer’s work is a defining point because it was the tipping point from an occult view to a scientific view of hypnosis. Mesmer was the first person to suggest a rational base for the effects of hypnosis healing many ailments. In the 19th century interest began to focus on understanding the effects of hypnosis and how they could be applied in real life. Most notable in this time period was the physician James Esdaile, who pioneered its use in the medical field, and James Braid, who researched the physical and biological levels of hypnosis. By the end of the 19th century, their evidence-based work led to hypnosis being accepted as a valid clinical tool for use in medical settings and universities. The 20th century led to a movement of hypnosis away from the clinical setting to becoming more widely available in private practice to the general public. The style of hypnosis and hypnotherapy moved from direct suggestions to indirect suggestions based on language patterns. At the centre of this development was Milton H. Erickson. Erickson is the most well-known hypnotherapist and Ericksonian hypnosis is still taught and used widely today. He shaped how hypnosis is taught and the way it is used in both the medical and the therapeutic environment. Very importantly, work in hypnotherapy began to move towards understanding how hypnosis can be used to ease psychological issues such as stress, anxiety and weight problems.

4. Recent scientific advances in hypnotherapy

With funding made available for hypnotherapy within universities, the scientific study of hypnosis is making huge advances and hypnotherapy is moving forward as a credible and widely available evidence-based therapy. For example, Peter Whorwell, Professor of Medicine and Gastroenterology in the School of Medicine at Manchester University, discovered and developed a method of treating Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) using hypnotherapy. This method is perfect for those who have no medical cause behind their IBS and teaches clients how to influence and control their gut function. Hypnotherapy for IBS can relieve all symptoms of the condition, whereas medication can only ever relieve a few. Hypnotherapy has also been used to aid pain management in cancer patients, reduce anxiety and improve sleep. Research into hypnotherapy for depression is also showing positive results.

5. Self-hypnosis Many of the techniques outlined in this book are separate to self-hypnosis and can be used without it. However, as hypnosis allows direct access to the subconscious part of your mind, using self-hypnosis will improve the success of the techniques. Before we go on to discuss the psychotherapeutic techniques in detail, this section outlines two very effective methods of selfhypnosis. Hypnosis is induced in situations where you have a focused state of mind or you are deeply relaxed. This is great news for traders because it means that you can be in self-hypnosis whilst you are trading and thus use that focused attention to heighten your trading skills and make better trades. It also means you can use hypnosis before and after trading to relax, de-stress and make positive changes to your mental attitude, psychology and trading success. I use the techniques outlined in this section, as well as many more, to help traders take control of their lives and start trading more productively, to react better to inevitable losing trades and to make greater profits. Follow the instructions in this book and practise these techniques and you will see an improvement in your trading ability. Taking shortcuts, not taking it

seriously or skipping bits will negatively affect the results you see. If you really want success, you have to work for it and earn it.

The principles of hypnosis The basic principles of hypnosis are as follows: 1. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis. In a therapeutic setting you cannot be hypnotised if you don’t want to be and thus you always choose to go into hypnosis. 2. There is so single hypnotic feeling. Many people assume that when you are in hypnosis you must feel different, out of control somehow. This simply isn’t the case. Some people feel no different at all and don’t even realise they are in hypnosis. Others feel like they are floating or sinking, or warm or cool, and some experience tingling sensations. All of these are right and normal. 3. You create change. Whether you are using hypnosis on your own or you see a hypnotherapist like myself, you are the one doing all the hard work to create change. This also means you are in full control at all times and can go into or come out of hypnosis whenever you like. This also means you have to want to create change. 4. There are different levels of hypnosis. Some people will only ever achieve a light state of hypnosis, whereas other people can go into very deep levels of hypnosis. Does it matter? Not really. Even in a light state of hypnosis you can create fantastic changes. For many, it just takes a few sessions before they can allow themselves to go deeper into hypnosis and become even more relaxed.

Preparing for self-hypnosis I will now outline two different techniques to induce or ‘get into’ hypnosis. There are many different methods you could use, but I have chosen to highlight two very effective ones. You will find one method that suits you best and works for you. Whilst it is important to practise both methods, don’t focus on those that aren’t working for you in the long term; focus on what works well for you and what feels good.

The best place to start is preparation. Although you can use hypnosis almost anywhere, it is important to be on your own. Somewhere relaxed and quiet, where you won’t be disturbed. Turn off your phone, wear comfortable clothes, and make sure you are warm or cool enough. Whilst learning and developing your skills in self-hypnosis, use a room with a comfortable chair, sofa or bed where you can sit or lie down. Try to keep your arms and legs uncrossed so you don’t get uncomfortable part way through. Give yourself time. You’ll need at least half an hour to guide yourself into hypnosis and work through your chosen topic. Finally, prepare in advance what it is you’d like to work on. Whether you just want some time to relax and re-energise, or you want to put a bad trade behind you, or you want to improve your winning trades – it is important to know the goal of your session to avoid becoming distracted. Read through each method first before practising it so that you don’t have to stop to re-read this section or think too much about what you are doing. This is easy, it’s natural and you can’t get it wrong.

The importance of a ‘safe place’ Once you are in self-hypnosis and before you start working on your goals, you’ll need to create a safe place. This safe place is just a place in your mind where you feel comfortable, in control and a place where there is only you and your thoughts. Some people create a living room area, other people have a beautiful garden or a golden tranquil beach. Your safe place can be somewhere you have been before that is special to you or where you felt relaxed, or it can be created from your imagination. Create it in your mind’s eye now – think about the colours you can see, the sounds you can hear (e.g. waves, silence, birds tweeting), whether you can smell anything, what you feel (e.g. warm or cool breeze), how the bed or the chair feels as you touch it. This is invoking all of your senses and will help you gain a deeper state of hypnosis. It will also help you work with the senses that appeal to you most. For example, many people find it hard to create an image in their mind. So instead, they use smell, sounds or thinking about how something will feel when touched. You will usually have a dominance in visual, auditory or

olfactory (smell) processing and you can adapt all of the techniques in this book to work specifically for you, depending on which it is. Here is a basic method for creating your safe place. You can use this quite successfully on its own, or you can adapt it as you wish. Creating your safe place Imagine a staircase with ten steps leading down, covered in a soft carpet in your favourite colour and design. At the bottom of the staircase is a door to your own special room, a room where nobody can go but you. Now count from ten down to zero and with each number take another step down that staircase, becoming more relaxed, and when you reach zero you’ll be outside that door to your room. 10, 9 8, 7 – thinking about how soft the carpet feels 6, 5 – halfway down, feeling safe and secure 4, 3 2, 1 – just one more step to zero Picture that door in your mind now. How does it look? Think about the texture of the handle. When you are ready, move inside the room. It’s warm, softly lit, looking exactly how you want it to look. Take a moment to make it really vivid in your mind, thinking about how it feels, how it smells, and how it looks. This is a room where you can make wonderful things happen for yourself, just by imagining them. In the room is the most comfortable chair you’ve ever seen. Just go over to it and sit down, relax and let your mind do all the work now as you create positive change for yourself easily. Nobody wants anything from you, nobody needs anything, just relax…

Progressive relaxation Progressive relaxation is very simply taking the time to relax each and every part of your body. Follow this relaxation by guiding yourself into that special room and you will find yourself deeply relaxed and able to make confident and positive changes to achieve success. Below is a script that you can follow until you get used to doing it on your own. For the first few times, just focus on learning to relax. Once you have guided yourself into your safe place, you can either spend some time enjoying being very relaxed or simply open your eyes to end the session. When you are feeling confident with being in hypnosis, you can pick one activity or area to work through whilst in hypnosis. Each activity in this

book has been designed so that you can use them both in and out of hypnosis. However, once you’ve mastered hypnosis, I am confident you will always choose to use it as you will find that it brings quicker and more effective results. Progressive relaxation Step 1: Close your eyes. Take five nice, slow, deep breaths in, breathing out slowly each time. If you can, focus on slowing the out-breath down so it lasts longer than the in-breath. For example, breathe in for the count of four and out for the count of six. Step 2: Think about a colour you find relaxing. It might be a bright warm colour, a pastel colour, or a deep velvety colour. This is the colour of relaxation and as it moves over each part of your body, it will help you to relax it. Perhaps you can see it or perhaps you have an awareness that it is there in your mind. Step 3: Think about the top of your head now. Move down slowly to focus on relaxing the muscles of your face: your forehead, eyes, cheeks, mouth and jaw muscles. Just let the skin settle and smooth out. Focus on breathing gently, easily. Bring that colour or that relaxing feeling down into your neck and shoulder muscles, down through your arms to the tips of your fingers. Now relax your chest, moving through to your stomach muscles, into those deep muscles either side of your spine. Just let them go lazy. Think about this feeling moving down your hips and into your thigh muscles, relaxing through your knees, your calf muscles unwinding and letting the tension just drift away as you think down into your ankles and feet. Your whole body is feeling relaxed, easy, lazy even. Step 4: Guide yourself into your safe room.

Eye fixation The eye fixation technique is a quicker method for dropping into hypnosis. This is a Marmite technique in that some clients find it really easy to get into a wonderful state of hypnosis, whereas others feel that although they are in hypnosis, it’s perhaps not as deep as they’d like. Practice makes perfect! Once again, don’t forget to create your safe room once you are deeply relaxed. Eye Fixation

Step 1: With your eyes open take five nice, slow, deep breaths in, breathing out slowly each time. If you can, focus on slowing the out-breath down so it lasts longer than the in-breath. For example, breathe in for the count of four and out for the count of six. Step 2: Pick a point on the wall or the floor and stare at it. Keep your eyes focused on that point and just keep looking at it. Try to avoid blinking. You’ll notice your eyes begin to feel a bit tired or strained. You may find that your eyelids feel really heavy as if they want to close. This is good. Just keep staring at that point you have chosen. Notice your eyelids feeling heavier and heavier. Step 3: Once you are struggling to keep your eyes open, allow your eyelids to close and as you do, breathe out and notice how relaxed and wonderful it feels now that your eyes are closed. Step 4: Now that you are relaxed, keeping your eyes closed, guide yourself into your safe place.

Ending your self-hypnosis session You cannot get stuck in hypnosis, but it is important to have a method of gradually bringing yourself back into your day. Coming out of hypnosis abruptly can be disorientating. A simple method is to count back up from one to five when you are ready, opening your eyes on the count of five, or you could visualise yourself swimming underwater and coming to the surface and opening your eyes wide awake.

Warning Hypnosis is a perfectly normal and natural state. But it is a state of relaxation and therefore it is important to make sure you are somewhere safe. You must never practise hypnosis whilst driving or operating heavy machinery, or when you are responsible for looking after other people.

6. Psychotherapy and NLP ‘Psychotherapeutic techniques’ is an all-encompassing term that includes any therapeutic techniques that work on your mind in some way. These may include elements of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), reflection and talking therapy. This book is primarily focused on NLP so the majority of techniques that you’ll use come under the heading of NLP.

NLP is used by hypnotherapists across the world to help create change and improve their clients’ lives. It can be used as a standalone technique or it can be combined with other therapies. When combined with hypnotherapy it can create fantastic and permanent changes.

Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) Your world revolves around you and, whilst you probably won’t change the world, you can change your perception of it. NLP helps you do that and do it quickly, increasing your ability to be successful in whatever you want to do. NLP has its origins in the 1970s when linguist John Grinder and mathematician Richard Bandler wanted to know why some people are really good at some things and find them easy, whilst others aren’t so good and find them hard. They decided to investigate the difference between someone who is competent at what they do and someone who is excellent at what they do. The results of this research led to the development of a variety of techniques that now come under the umbrella of NLP. NLP is comprised of three main aspects: 1. Neuro – the way we use our senses and translate experience into conscious and subconscious thought processes. 2. Linguistic – how we use language to describe and categorise our world to understand our experiences. 3. Programming – our patterns of thought and behaviour. Humans repeat patterns of behaviour to create rules and shortcuts to process their environments. Regardless of whether a person’s ability or excellence is down to nature (genetics) or nurture (practice), NLP techniques are designed to help people develop and enhance their mindset and behaviours and turn their competencies into excellence, no matter what they are doing. NLP proposes three main elements to a skill or behaviour: what the person does, what the person thinks and what the person feels. This book uses

those elements, combined with other psychotherapeutic techniques, to help you achieve positive changes and meet your potential as a trader. That can mean going from being able to apply the practical knowledge of how to trade to trading well all the time. It can be the difference between knowing you need to control your emotions whilst trading and doing that in practice. Fundamentally, the NLP techniques outlined in this book are aimed at helping you to change the way you perceive specific events within the trading environment and your state of mind. This means you can change the way you process a losing trade, or you can reduce the fear that you feel. After all, fear usually stems from our thoughts and causes a physical and emotional reaction. If you change your thoughts and your reactions then you can change your behaviour. When you learn to trade, you are taught how to trade, how to analyse the charts, and what you should feel when you trade, which is nothing (a lack of emotion). You are not taught how to think about the information presented and how to feel about the risks you are taking each time you trade. This is where NLP can help you restructure the way you approach trading from a psychological viewpoint as well as a practical one. The techniques outlined in this book were not created by me and I do not claim that they were. I have chosen to include them because they are techniques that I use with my hypnotherapy clients to help them achieve massive changes in their lives, both in trading and in other areas.

7. Havening: unblocking emotional barriers There are occasions when we don’t know why we behave in certain ways or have certain feelings or emotional blockers. Sometimes, hypnotherapy or NLP alone can resolve those issues without needing to delve internally, but sometimes we need to address the underlying causes in order to create the changes we want. There are a variety of ways you can do that. Hypno-analysis or regression therapy is one method – it is not something that can be or should be taught in a book like this, but you will find more information on this in the section

on finding a therapist. Another approach to resolving the underlying emotional elements is to use Havening. Havening is a psycho-sensory technique that you can use to help resolve feelings and behaviours. It is a fairly recent therapy and one that has been developed from a scientific approach. The next part of this chapter outlines the basics of Havening and how you can use it to resolve past emotional issues. You can self-haven or you can seek out a skilled therapist who uses Havening with their clients. One notable therapist is Paul McKenna, who uses Havening for a variety of client issues. Before I go on to talk more about Havening for emotional blockers, it is important to note that you can use Havening for fear, stress, anxiety and coping with losing trades. So like hypnotherapy, it is multipurpose and you can use the guidance I give you to practise the use of Havening in different ways.

The power of touch Havening is a breakthrough psycho-sensory and healing technique developed by Dr Ronald Ruden. It is particularly good for working with emotional and psychological trauma. Putting it very simply, Havening uses the power of touch to release serotonin (the brain’s happy hormone) and this combats the stress hormones released when thinking about or experiencing something you find traumatic, stressful or upsetting. Havening can combat this in minutes. Event Havening combines repeated touch to various parts of the body with various eye movements and visualisation. Havening points are based on a mother’s touch and are hardwired into our bodies and brains. This touch is then combined with eye movements, visualisation work and counting to break down the associations with unhappy feelings and memories. The most effective Havening points are: The area under the eyes and across the cheeks. Imagine wiping away tears – this is the action you would use.

The palms of your hands. You would rub them as if wiping or washing your hands. The shoulders down to the elbows. You stroke from the top of the arm down to the elbow. The specifics of how to use Event Havening will be outlined in the chapter on fear and you’ll learn how to apply this technique to other issues as well. Havening is most frequently used outside of hypnosis and is complementary to it. However, it is possible to go into self-hypnosis whilst Havening and this is an excellent technique for resolving underlying issues. For more background information on Havening, visit havening.org.

8. How hypnotherapy and psychotherapy help traders Trading success comes down to several elements: excellent methodology, execution and decision-making, intertwined with excellent emotional and psychological control. Of all these, I believe mental preparation (psychological control) and emotional balance are the most important elements. The reason that many traders fail to be a success, whatever success means to them, comes down to: An inability to make a decision and stick to it Anxiety and stress whilst trading Poor mental preparation before trading Not following their methodology and being inconsistent on approach Negatively reacting to losing trades and being unable to let go of those negative emotions Letting fear get in the way Hypnotherapy and NLP can help you to combat these problems. This is because hypnosis allows you to access that subconscious part of your mind where change can be created quickly and easily. These changes can be made with a variety of psychotherapeutic techniques which will be outlined in the following chapters. This will provide you with an excellent set of

tools that you can pick and choose from to help you achieve positive change and success. I have been working with traders since 2010 and I use these techniques, as well as many more, with my clients and see amazing results. Many trading books that you read or well-known successful traders that you might listen to will tell you that if you are emotionally weak you shouldn’t trade, or that you should be able to trade without any emotion. I disagree. Emotions are a reaction to what is happening in our environment and this should not be ignored. However, you can easily learn to manage your emotions. Successful traders do not trade without emotion, they just manage emotion differently. Hypnotherapy, NLP and Havening can help you harness your emotions, control them and put them to better use. *** Now that you’ve learned self-hypnosis and have an understanding of the main styles and techniques used in this book, you can move on to working on your trading challenges.

PART TWO. TRADING

CHALLENGES AND HOW TO DEAL WITH THEM

P

art Two is designed to help you identify your trading challenges and the potential psychological reasons behind them. You will learn to analyse your trading pitfalls and use a variety of techniques to combat them and improve your trading success. In particular, it covers four of the most common psychological blockers in trading. These are: stress and anxiety, negative self-talk, fear, and reactions to losing trades. This part of the book is very practical and I suggest you take time to work through each chapter. You will need to make notes as you work through the activities. Please ensure you read through the instructions for each activity and technique in full before starting it. The topics of Part Two are: 1. Common client issues 2. Understanding your trading challenges 3. Coping with losing trades 4. Reducing stress and anxiety 5. Getting rid of fear 6. Negative self-talk

CHAPTER TWO. Common

Client

Issues

T

he purpose of this chapter is to introduce you to the wide variety of practical, emotional and psychological challenges that traders face. This will help you to start identifying the behaviours you display that may be affecting your trading success. Whilst there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach, these trader errors are usually caused by fear, anxiety, a lack of confidence and how you react to the trades you take. By understanding the mistakes you make, you can start to identify why you make them and then use the techniques outlined in later chapters to help resolve the behaviours. Most technical or practical trading errors stem from decision-making and other psychological aspects that inevitably influence how you trade and the decisions you make. Psychological barriers cause huge problems for traders – from novice home-based traders to successful full-time professionals. No matter how skilled you are or the extent of your trading knowledge, if you can’t overcome the psychological challenges of trading then you will not meet your full potential and you will continue to make mistakes over and over again. The issues covered are: 1. Lack of review 2. Focusing only on potential profit 3. Not controlling risk 4. Losing too much money 5. Lack of planning 6. Unrealistic expectations 7. Panic or revenge trading

8. Compulsive trading 9. Lack of routine 10. Too big a point value

1. Lack of review It is incredibly important to review every completed trade, whether you win or lose. Quite often, when you review losing trades you will notice an indicator as to why you shouldn’t have taken that trade, or you will understand other decisions you could have made. It is equally important to look at what you did right when you win. There are a number of possible reasons why traders do not review their trades: 1. Lack of time. Schedule in some time every day to review trades, just as you already make time to check charts before you trade. 2. Avoidance. Some traders may not realise they are using avoidance techniques. Perhaps they don’t want to admit they made a mistake or don’t want the reality of money lost to be staring them in the face. Start identifying why you avoid reviewing your trades, then brainstorm methods to address these reasons. 3. Ego. Whether it’s to protect their self-esteem or because they believe they know what they are doing, a trader’s ego can seriously impede their success. You need to believe in yourself, but also understand the need to keep learning. You have to invest time in developing your knowledge. We all teeter on the brink of problems with self-esteem at times and losing trades can obviously emphasise that feeling of low self-worth. However, by avoiding reality you are setting yourself up for a bigger fall later. In fact, this is the perfect opportunity to reframe the issue – instead of avoiding analysing failed trades and knowing you have not done well or made a silly mistake, choose to think of it as learning and developing. You will review your trades, understand what happened and be in a better position to make decisions and act on them in the future.

4. The ‘know it all’ attitude. If you blame everything and everyone else you are not accepting responsibility for your own performance. Recognise that you need to continue to learn and develop your skill. Until you admit this to yourself, you will be unable to improve as a trader.

2. Focusing only on potential profit Successful traders analyse charts and make calculated decisions on what they hope to achieve and what they believe will happen, and how much they are prepared to risk losing. They might risk 1% of their portfolio and set in place a stop loss or other strategy to limit the downside. This is all part of a long-term trading plan. However, many traders make the error of focusing on short-term ‘what if’ or ‘if only’ scenarios and find themselves feeling desperate as they think about how much money they could make if the market direction turns again. This leads to them staying in trades too long and, instead of taking a managed loss in keeping with a plan, they incur a loss that then seems devastating. This focus on how much they could be making can lead to negative behaviour such as revenge trading and trying to punish the market, or jumping into trades desperately trying to recoup losses. Successful traders focus on a long-term plan, not short-term profit.

3. Not controlling risk I have noticed a tendency among my clients to forget to move a stop loss to break-even point on a trade, or to fail to consider this as a possibility. I was working with a trader who repeatedly incurred losses that were beyond what was acceptable to him. I asked about the possibility of moving the stop loss to break-even during the trade, or other ways he could protect any profits made. My client was genuinely astonished I’d asked such a thing. His mindset was focused on only two outcomes: profit and loss. There had been no consideration of making decisions live, during the trade.

We worked together on developing a confident attitude and empowering him to make decisions and think differently about the information in front of him. The change was instant and he stopped making huge losses and began to keep hold of his profits in trades that would otherwise have turned negative because he adapted his method and attitude to make better decisions. This client learned to take control of the trade rather than letting the trade control him.

4. Losing too much money This point is very similar to the one above. Many traders lose too much money. The problem is not that they are losing trades – after all, that’s a fact of trading. It’s that the amount of each loss is unacceptable to them, yet they feel unable to do anything about it. There will be times when losses will be extreme and unpredictable, due to a sudden event or piece of news that was completely unexpected. On the whole, though, you can take control and make decisions about what you are prepared to risk. Losing too much money on a regular basis can affect your self-esteem, cause negative self-talk, increase stress and anxiety, and influence further poor decision-making. For some, this is a sign of selfsabotage, where they are subconsciously making bad decisions – perhaps deep down they don’t believe they deserve success, or that they haven’t earned the money. One client I worked with really struggled with the feeling that she wasn’t actually working by trading and so hadn’t earned her money. Her family had raised her to believe you have to work hard for money to earn it. She didn’t see trading as a proper job and felt her profits weren’t really earned so she didn’t deserve to make money. So instead she lost huge amounts! Within a few weeks she had changed her attitude and realised she did work hard when trading and did deserve to make profits. Upon this realisation, her decision-making changed and almost instantly she began to make better profits and smaller losses, before going on to earn back her initial investment.

5. Lack of planning Trading plans and strategies don’t have to be complicated or long-winded. However, you do need to have one in some form. This will help you focus your mind and your decision-making. Trading is your business and any good business owner has a strategy, goals and objectives, and a plan for how they are going to achieve them. The absence of a plan means a lack of commitment to a particular strategy or method. It means a lack of vision and it also means you cannot measure your success. Traders without a plan are usually very nomadic in personality and have a tendency to experience greater levels of stress and anxiety. They are open to being negatively affected by trading. Here is an example trading plan I offer to my clients and ask them to populate. Trading plan Objectives

Short term – Earn X points/pips per day Intermediate – When consistently earning X points, increase the value by X amount, e.g. over two or three months Long term – To be consistently making £X per year Personal rules I trade at these times: I will not trade at these times: If I incur £X losses or X number of losses per session I stop for the day I will review my trades on a daily/weekly basis I will do X amount of study each month I will invest in a mindset/hypnotherapist/trading coach Trading method Day trader/long term Style of trading

Three losing trades in a row will cause me to reduce what I trade by X amount and I will take time out to review why I lost those trades Money rules No more than two losses per trading session No more than X amount to lose per month, e.g. X% of portfolio, and if making a loss like this I will re-evaluate my plan Once I have achieved 50% of my monthly profit goal I will do X to ensure I cannot lose it Trading specific Outline your method and create a checklist of criteria each trade should meet before you will take it Print off this checklist and complete it for each trade Measure your success by the number of trades you complete where you correctly followed your methodology and plan, not just by profit

6. Unrealistic expectations Many people go into trading because they see potential to get rich quick. In reality only a small percentage make lots of money in a short time. Therefore many traders lack patience. This means they put themselves on an emotional rollercoaster. Anecdotally, take the example of football. Whether you are a football fan or not, most people usually watch the World Cup. When you watch a match you pick a team to support. Every time your chosen team moves close to the goal you feel your excitement rising. You find yourself saying, “Go on… Good… you can score… go for it….come on….COME ON!” and you will either end with a “Yes!” or a “No!” Your heart was racing, you may have even felt the blood pumping as you literally sat on the edge of your seat, but there are no real-life consequences for you. In this example, I am showing you the peak and trough of excitement in a harmless setting. You want your team to win. Now apply that to trading. You see the trade going up in the favoured direction. You feel the excitement as it builds and all of a sudden you can see that you could make an even bigger profit than you thought.

Then the market changes direction. Instead of calmly monitoring this, some traders now feel panic or sadness as that money slips away. This can lead to them stopping the trade with either a small profit or small loss because they don’t think the market will reverse again. Or excitement and hope takes hold and they can’t make themselves close the trade with a good but smaller profit and instead keep hoping the market turns again. They risk eventually being stopped out with a bigger loss. It is hard to make those decisions and essentially practice and experience makes perfect. But this is also where you need to work on perspective and move into a longer-term mindset rather than looking at one trade at a time. It’s also where you may need to work on controlling your emotions and detaching yourself from the situation so you can make decisions based on logic, your goals and your trading plan. This is also about setting realistic expectations in your trading plan. It is unlikely, although not impossible, to start off with £3,000 and turn it into £300,000 within a month. This is where your trading plan can really help you. As mentioned above, many traders live off the ‘what if’ excitement of the possibilities related to trading, rather than approaching trading with specific goals and targets in mind.

7. Panic or revenge trading How many times have you incurred a losing trade or two and then carried on trading in a desperate attempt to get back to break-even? Do you stop and ask yourself why you don’t stop trading immediately after the first losing trade? How are you feeling when you jump straight in? Are you following your trading plan or are you jumping in blind or with only half the information? Are you trading because you feel a compulsion to get that money back or feel panicked? Are you angry at yourself or the market for your bad trades? Why don’t you stop and think before continuing? Many clients I have worked with don’t even stop to ask themselves questions, analyse what is going on or reflect on why they lost the last trade. They act on impulse and with desperation, anger or annoyance. The decisions they make are influenced by how they are feeling rather than facts.

I once worked with a client who got so angry after losing a trade he would storm around the house in a fury. He found the only way to calm down was to take another trade and he couldn’t relax until he had done so. The cycle would continue until he made a profit. It didn’t matter to him whether this was a small profit or whether the profit superseded the losses he had incurred. I worked with this client on remaining calm during trades, changing how he chose to react to losing trades and being able to take control of the situation again. He was a completely different man. His home life improved because his family didn’t have to avoid him whilst he was trading or afterwards if the trades had gone awry. He still had losing trades, but the amount he was losing each week and month was reduced because he was able to walk away and stop jumping straight into other trades without giving them full consideration. He developed a new level of discipline and took ownership of the experience.

8. Compulsive trading Trading addiction or compulsion seems to affect many people. Similar to the feeling of having to justify profits as earnings, as discussed above, there are many traders who think they have to take a trade every day, even if they can’t see a trade setting up. This leads to desperate trading or trading without a strategy and plan. It is also commonly seen in people who trade around a day job and if, for whatever reason, they had to work when they would usually trade, they might decide to trade later on in the day to make up for that. There is a certain reputation associated with being a trader, and certain stigmas. You need to ignore these. If it’s not an appropriate time to trade, don’t trade. Wait until tomorrow or next week. If the compulsion to trade is too strong then consider why and do something about it. The techniques outlined in later chapters will help you with this. I worked with a trader who found he would try and trade right into the evenings. He didn’t even have a plan, but he felt that he should trade because his goals were to provide for his family and to become a full-time

trader. Instead, he was taking himself further away from his family and from being able to leave his part-time job to trade full-time. We worked together on appropriate goal setting, removing that feeling of compulsion to trade and some time-lining methods. These are methods aimed at getting a person to assess where they want to be at a future point in their life and how they can achieve this. In a matter of weeks this client went from crazy trading to only trading when appropriate. As a result, he started taking fewer trades overall and increased his proportion of profitable trades. He was sticking to when he wanted to trade rather than when he felt he should trade. He also got his evenings back to spend with his family.

9. Lack of routine Lack of routine has been mentioned in relation to the issues above, but it bears repetition here. It is important to take control of trading rather than letting trading control you. By having a routine and a plan, you will learn to master trading the markets quicker and more effectively than if you trade without a routine. TIP! As a hypnotherapist I have to be able to swap between being a therapist, a parent, a partner and a friend, on a regular basis. Sometimes it can be tempting to blur the lines or it can be difficult not to take client issues home. All therapists put in place basic methods to help them balance this. Traders need to do the same, otherwise your brain never switches off, you don’t sleep as well and you live and breathe a focus on money. Here are some tips to help you do this: 1. Trading is a job – have set times when you trade. Once that time is up, switch off your computer and do something completely different. 2. Change your clothes – wear certain clothes for work and certain clothes for home life. It is amazing how quickly taking off or putting on your ‘uniform’ can transform your mindset.

3. Relax when you are finished – do a quick relaxation exercise that takes only a few minutes to help clear your mind at the end of a trading session.

10. Too big a point value This topic links well to having unrealistic expectations. If you are feeling panicked and constantly worrying about how much you might lose on a trade then consider reducing your point value to a level you feel very comfortable with. Having a lower point value may mean smaller profits, but this is a short-term view. Your long-term view should be on gaining consistency with your trading decisions. If you reduce your point value, you’ll naturally be less anxious and therefore find decisions easier to make whilst trading. Once you are trading well at the lower point value, you can increase it in small, incremental steps. Master it one step at a time and you will be more successful in the long term.

The four broad challenges traders face This is a brief insight into a variety of problems traders come across and what could be contributing towards these behaviours. The following chapters address the psychological causes of bad trading. The table below will help you see how the errors you make might be linked to the four key psychological problem areas outlined in the following chapters. This is just as an example and all four topics are intertwined in a variety of ways. To give you an idea, lack of review may be due to wanting to avoid the negative self-talk associated with making mistakes; you may feel anxious and want to move on from a trade, especially if you lost money; and this may be because you are afraid of failing. When talking to traders, I could probably mark every box for every issue at some point or another. However, it is useful to create some broad patterns to enable you to focus on certain areas. The table may give you an idea of particular chapters you want to pay more attention to, depending on your trading challenges.

Issue

Chapter 4: Coping with Losing Trades

Lack of review

Chapter 5: Stress and Anxiety X

Chapter 6: Chapter 7: The Negative SelfRole of Fear Talk X

X

Focus on profit

X

X

Not controlling risk

X

X

X

X

Losing too much money

X

X

X

X

Lack of planning

X

X

X

Unrealistic expectations

X

X

Panic trading

X

X

Compulsive trading

X

X

Lack of routine Too big a point value

X

X

X X

X X

X

X

X

X

NB. Although I make reference to certain chapters seeming more applicable to you than others, don’t race through those you think may not apply to you. Work through the whole book and read each chapter carefully to work out which techniques resonate with you.

CHAPTER THREE. Understanding

Your Trading Challenges

A

s a trader it is important that you start by focusing on what you want to achieve from trading and the challenges you will face in achieving this, whether these are bad habits, a lack of information, or managing your emotions. In order to create positive and constructive change, you need to know what you want to change and why you want to change it. Then you can move on to how you can change and what you want the result to be. This chapter is designed to help you analyse how you trade, your trading behaviours, the mistakes that you make and what the resolution to each issue might be. This is to provide you with clarity on what exactly it is that you want to change. Grab some paper and a pen. Start by writing down all the bad habits, problems and challenges you face as a trader. It is important that you are honest with yourself so that you get the best results from the exercise and don’t cheat yourself out of success. Here are a few examples of behaviours and problems traders present with day to day in my hypnotherapy practice: No particular methodology Too much money per point – out of their comfort zone Not following advice from experts Pulling out of trades too soon Misreading charts/missing key indicators Ignoring their methodology Getting caught up in the moment Not sticking to particular times to trade/compulsion to keep checking charts/markets, etc., even at a non-trading time Consistently losing trades

Taking a minimal profit just in case it might become a loss Feeling like you have to take a trade even if nothing looks suitable Wanting to prove others wrong/impress others Being too focused on how much you want/need in your account – pressure Distracted by family/relationship problems Problems paying bills/money worries Once you have written down all of your challenges, rate each one on a scale of one to ten – ten representing a massive influence on your trading success, one representing very little impact. This is so you know where to focus your attention. Once you have rated each factor influencing your trading, you are ready to start breaking down those barriers to success. The second half of this activity is to write down the resolution to each individual trading problem you identified above. For example, if your trading is affected by a relationship problem the options are: fix the problem, or be able to switch off from the problem whilst trading. Take your time to complete this and organise the results in a table like the one below in the order from most influencing factor to least influencing factor. Challenge Resolution

By completing the above activity you are focusing your mind on creating the changes that you want. You are seeing the problem and you are seeing the resolution. Being able to visualise what you want to achieve is an important step towards achieving it. Let’s now move on to the ‘how’ element of the book. We’re going to look at various challenges traders face and I’ll provide techniques that can be used to overcome these problems.

CHAPTER FOUR. Coping

With

Losing Trades

T

rading is guaranteed to cause you a level of cognitive and emotional confusion. It is one of the most emotionally turbulent careers you can choose. This is because you choose it to make money – you hope a lot of money – yet you have to experience losing money on failed trades and accept that losing is all part of the process. Easier said than done, right? How are you supposed to accept and move on from losing trades? No other job involves working at a financial loss and risking profit on a daily basis quite like trading does. In this chapter you will learn: 1. Common reactions to losing trades 2. Reasons behind losing trades 3. The grief cycle 4. Grief outside of trading 5. Moving on from losing trades 6. Activity: understanding how you react to losing trades 7. Technique: affirmations – accepting that loss is inevitable 8. Technique: creating an emotional barrier 9. Technique: breathe and calm your mind 10. Technique: letting go of bad trades 11. Technique: results thinking and reframing 12. Technique: Havening to move on from a bad trade

1. Common reactions to losing trades

There are many different emotional reactions experienced when losing on a trade. Here are just some of them: Disbelief – how can this be happening? You had done your prep work, it looked like a great trade to take, there were no negative indicators, etc. Anxiety and stress – both during and at the end of a trade. This can be linked to the upset at losing the trade, how this might impact your portfolio, or how it may impact your life. Helplessness – feeling like you aren’t in control of the trading environment and you don’t know what to do. Frustration – why has this happened? Perhaps you know you could have made a better decision, exited the trade earlier or indeed hung on in there a bit longer for the trade to turn. Anger – anger at yourself, anger at the market, anger at everyone else. This can be dangerous as it can lead you to revenge trading and taking your anger out on the market, which can lead to further and bigger losses. Fear – how is this going to impact my overall trading success? Does this mean I am a rubbish trader? How am I going to explain this? There is a fear of failing and a dent to your self-esteem. Desperation – a dangerous feeling that can lead you to jump straight back into trades in an attempt to claw back your losses. This is a problem because in a highly emotive state, you often won’t be able to think straight and process the information in front of you. As with revenge trading, you may make bad decisions, you may ignore the strategy and methodology you’ve spent time mastering, and you may make bigger losses. All of these feelings and behaviours are natural and normal. These reactions are also part of the normal human grief cycle. This is the time when you know whether you are controlled by the trade or whether you take control of the trade. You cannot know exactly what will happen during a trade and losses can be unexpected. Nevertheless, you can take control of the trade by taking control of how you behave. Mastering

this mindset is not easy because you’ll be going against human nature, which is to avoid anything that risks harm or that is unpleasant for us.

2. Reasons behind losing trades Let’s explore reasons for losing trades. Some of them are technical, and these elements can easily be fixed with training and perhaps the use of a technical trading coach, and some of them are psychological and behavioural, which can be fixed by using the techniques in this book. The technical reasons include: Trading too much money yet not having enough – it’s easy to be tempted to stake large sums of money on trades. However, if it’s the only money you have then you can’t afford to lose it. If you have a small start-up capital, start off trading smaller amounts. Poor risk management – not putting in place an appropriate stoploss strategy. How much are you prepared to lose each trade, e.g. 1% of your capital? What is the minimum profit you’d like? If you’ve met it, perhaps you can move your stop so that in a worst-case scenario you make that minimum profit level. Indecisiveness – perhaps the trade is slow to start or you aren’t sure if you should be day trading or swing trading. So you do both and get confused. Or you don’t give the trade long enough to gain momentum. Trying to pick tops or bottoms – if the trade goes in the wrong direction, a trader may add to the position in the hope that it will turn around, thus leaving them open to bigger disappointment if it does not. Psychological and behavioural include the following: Jumping into trades or overtrading – feeling like you should trade because you are a trader. Being too confident and trying to watch multiple trades when your attention span is limited.

Not accepting responsibility for your trades – the mistakes you make are your mistakes and your opportunities to learn and move on. Nonetheless, many traders refuse to acknowledge their mistakes and blame the market, or a broker, or someone on the internet who gave a ‘good tip’. Self-sabotage – deliberately making decisions that will lead to you losing on the trades. You may be aware that you are at risk of selfsabotage or you may be completely unaware you are doing it. Quite often, self-sabotage is linked to poor self-esteem and poor self-belief. Unrealistic expectations – this is a common problem and something many traders experience at the beginning of their trading careers. You are unlikely to turn £1,000 into £100,000 in a few months. If you are looking for that big trade – you know, the one that will make you rich in ten minutes when you have started with a few hundred pounds – you are likely to end up demotivated or taking excessive risks out of desperation. Not sticking to plan – if you consistently jump from one method to another, or otherwise disregard your plan, how will you develop your skill and how will you measure how well it really works for you? Impulsiveness – this could be jumping into trades too soon, or having a gut feeling it’s a sure bet so doubling your point value. Not taking the time to consider each trade setup properly leads to increased likelihood of poor decision-making. Emotions – fear, stress and anxiety. There is a lot of information on this topic elsewhere in the book.

3. The grief cycle Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a pioneer in supportive methods for grief and trauma, created the five stages of grief: denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance. Kübler-Ross argued that everyone who experiences grief has to go through the stages of the cycle in order to fully process the grief and move on. This cycle can easily be applied to traders and you may find it resonates with you. This is because losing money is obviously a loss and all losses

involve a level of grief. Some people work through the stages quickly and move on, whereas others may get stuck at a particular stage along the way. 1. Denial – have you ever avoided looking at exactly how much you’ve lost or where your portfolio actually stands? Have you stopped trading altogether because if you aren’t trading, at least you aren’t losing money? 2. Anger – this encompasses many emotions and responses including wanting to lash out. Do you find yourself being grumpy with those around you? Are you bashing the desk with your fist or do you start smacking the keys on your computer as you type? Do you find it hard to shake off these feelings? 3. Depression – as discussed above, that feeling of helplessness, not knowing what to do, hiding away from it all. Do you struggle to talk to your partner about losing trades? 4. Bargaining – this is not uncommon and many clients discuss it with me. They play and replay the trade in their minds over and over again with lots of ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’. Many traders find a level of self-talk whereby they are negotiating with themselves, such as “Well if I can regain that loss and get my account to break-even or back to X profit, then I’ll use a different account or a different trading method,” etc. 5. Acceptance – this is where you aim to be. To know that you have processed what has happened, why it has happened and how you can learn from it. That way, it’s not affecting you any more and you can start trading effectively again. How you react to losing trades means you could go through this process incredibly slowly, making further errors along the way. Alternatively, you can choose to react differently and you can develop new skills to brush off losing trades and move on.

4. Grief outside of trading

Before I move on from the grief cycle, I want to touch briefly on another element that can influence losing trades: non-trade related grief. As an example, I worked with a trader some years ago who had lost his father when he was just a boy. As an adult, it was just something that was part of his life; he didn’t really think about his father. He came to see me because he kept making silly mistakes whilst trading, with the result that he was showing a net loss. We spent time working on understanding what was happening whilst trading and his tendency for self-sabotage. Using analysis, it was revealed that my client had held onto a lot of anger from when his father had passed away. This was anger that his mother and other relatives had not spent time with him discussing what happened and why his father had passed away, leaving him feeling unimportant and unworthy. This was a lightbulb moment for my client. It was something he had never realised he felt at a conscious level – he hadn’t realised his losing trades were down to him feeling unworthy and using avoidance behaviours to ensure he wasn’t in the limelight. As soon as he had this realisation, he let go of his anger and avoidance, and he returned the next session a totally different trader. He started making better trading decisions, his losing trend stopped and his profitable trades began increasing week on week. He started to be very successful. He had been stuck in the grief cycle and had been unable to move on despite having no logical and conscious awareness of this and being clueless as to how this could have affected his trading. This is an important point: everything in life influences how you trade, what you trade, how often you trade, how you react to losing trades and how you move on to success.

5. Moving on from losing trades The first step is to recognise that you will experience losing trades some of the time. You should review your portfolio over the space of a month, say, rather than trade by trade. You should look to be making a profit over the medium and long term.

Of course, there are steps you can take to reduce your losing trades and the amount you lose on these trades. In order to improve, you first need to analyse and understand what you are experiencing.

6. Understanding how you react to losing trades It is important to understand what is happening whilst you trade, both from a personal perspective and the reality of the experience. For example, when do your levels of anxiety increase? What is your internal dialogue (the voice in your head)? How does that relate to what is happening on the screen in front of you? Personal experience vs actual experience

On a piece of paper, outline what happens when you experience losing trades. How do you feel? How do you react? How do you behave? Rather than just trying to recall what happened in the past, take your time with this activity and make notes as you experience a losing trade. That way you are working with the reality of your reactions rather than how you think you react – which can be very different. Move on to outline the reasons why you have lost trades – describe what is happening (e.g. exiting too late, wrong direction) and why it happened. These may link with your answers above, they may overlap or they may appear very separate. As with the first part of this activity, take your time and be honest with yourself. Now you’ve examined what’s happening emotionally and physically when you lose on a trade, you can go on to start making some changes. The rest of this chapter provides a few techniques that you should work through one at a time to see which works best for you. Before that, here are some practical tips for you to consider: 1. Use losing trades an as opportunity to learn. Review the trade after a short break. Understand why it became a losing trade. Were there any signals indicating you shouldn’t have entered the trade? How can

you learn from it? What will you do differently next time? Was it part of your strategy? 2. Protect your losses and the amount you are prepared to lose. Put appropriate stop losses in place. 3. Stop watching the whole trade. It’s an emotional rollercoaster watching it second by second and this could cause you to make decisions based on stress and anxiety rather than your trading plan. 4. Do not focus on this one trade, look at your profile over the course of a few weeks and months. Remember trading is an investment. As long as you are predominantly going up, then smaller losing trades are nothing but opportunities to learn. 5. Take a break from trading – particularly if you find you are feeling stressed and tempted to jump straight back into the next trade that comes along. It rarely ends well and you will feel worse about yourself afterwards.

7. Affirmations – accepting loss is inevitable Affirmations are brilliant for helping you to change your mindset quickly and almost effortlessly, so I have included a few here for you. Affirmations can help you adjust from seeing losing trades as completely negative to understanding and accepting them as an inevitable part of trading. They allow you to give yourself positive feedback and use this to create change. An in-depth guide to writing your own affirmations can be found in Part Three. Affirmations – losing trades Here are a number of affirmations to help you cope with losing trades. The best way to use them is with self-hypnosis and then repeat these affirmations either quietly inside your head or spoken out loud – whichever you prefer. Losing trades are part of the pathway to my trading success. I use losing trades as an opportunity to grow and learn as a trader. I welcome the success that comes with losing trades.

I remain calm and confident that I am a successful trader whether I make a profit or a loss. I react with focused determination and a calm attitude whilst trading. These affirmations have been designed to be memorable and realistic as well as deliberately aimed at helping you utilise losing trades for a more positive future.

8. Creating an emotional barrier This technique is a powerful way to protect yourself and your emotions. You can use it to stay calm during the turbulence of trading and when dealing with losing trades, and to combat fear, stress, anxiety and other emotions during trading. I personally use something similar as a therapist to prevent me from taking on clients’ issues as my own. Transference of emotions is incredibly common in the trading domain. If you lose a trade and become angry or annoyed then you may very well carry this on into the next few trades. This technique is designed to help prevent that. Creating an emotional barrier will help you remain clear, focused, calm and in control of the trade. Whilst you can’t predict what will happen during a trade, you can control your trading environment and this will improve your decision-making. This technique will require a number of tries to get it right because at first it will be novel to you and you want it to become something that eventually comes instantly and naturally to you. Remember: practise, practise, practise! Creating an emotional barrier Step 1: Choose a barrier that suits you and spend time visualising it. You do not need to use self-hypnosis for this. Whilst you are developing your emotional barrier, hypnosis will help integrate it faster. Here are some examples: a totem pole a see-through glass area between yourself and the computer body armour.

If you have a problem visualising something, perhaps you could pick an item of clothing you only ever wear when you are trading. Step 2: Once you can visualise the barrier, imagine a time when something you have seen on the screen during a trade has thrown out an unwanted emotional response from you (for example, the trade reversing direction), hitting against the barrier. Step 3: Imagine the barrier acting as a filter so that it keeps out unwanted emotions and lets through cognition for good decision-making. Step 4: When you are confident that you have this barrier in mind and it is comfortable for you to bring to mind with ease, practise using it in the trading situation. Before you start to trade, get comfortable and get everything set up ready to start looking at the charts, etc. Step 5: Just before you start your trading day, whilst in front of your computer, spend a few minutes with your eyes closed evoking your emotional barrier. Play around with it a bit to make it as real as possible. Know it is there to protect you emotionally. Perhaps imagine how hard or soft it feels and how heavy it might be. Step 6: When you are happy that it’s in place, start trading, safe in the knowledge that the barrier is there. If something is happening during a trade that’s triggering an emotional response, block this by mentally deflecting it to your barrier. You’ll soon find it happens automatically and you use it less and less as you learn how to control your emotions.

9. Breathe and calm your mind We all know how to breathe, right? Wrong! Many people hold their breath in anticipation or find they are having short, quickened breaths as they watch what is happening with a trade. As you experience an increase in anxiety, stress or excitement, your breathing changes. However, we need to breathe properly to maximise the amount of oxygen in our brains and to stop the body’s ‘fight or flight’ instinct kicking in. When we breathe properly, the oxygen we need is going to the correct parts of our body and we can make better decisions. Obviously a little adrenaline and some positive stress can be very good for us. Here, I am talking about bad levels of excitement or anxiety – you know your own levels and you’ll know when things are positive or negative. This is a simple, quick and easy technique that is often overlooked because of its simplicity. Sometimes complicated techniques are not required. Breathe and calm your mind

Step 1: Pick a memory that makes you really happy and, even better, a memory of being more relaxed. If you are struggling for a memory, pick a place or create somewhere in your mind. Perhaps you find the beach to be a very calm place, or perhaps a countryside walk, lazing by a pool or fishing. Step 2: Spend a moment thinking about your breathing. Try breathing in for the count of four and out for the count of eight (or six if eight is too much). As you slow down your out-breath, you are optimising the oxygen in your body and helping your body slow down. Step 3: Once you have taken several breaths and feel calmer thinking about your calm memory, let your breathing return to its normal calm pattern. If you still aren’t calm, keep thinking about that memory and complete another four or five rounds of four and eight breathing. If you need to, walk away and leave the room for a bit to calm down.

TIP! In the ‘Breathe and calm your mind’ activity you could use self-hypnosis or you could use the special place you have created just for the visualisation element whilst practising the breathing.

10. Letting go of bad trades The previous techniques were aimed at protecting yourself from negative emotions and calming yourself down. The next two techniques are aimed at letting go of bad trades so they don’t play on your mind and then moving on to become a results thinker rather than a problems thinker. I must stress here it is very important to review all trades to understand what went well and what went wrong. This will help you to learn from the trades. You will develop the ability to spot things that indicated you shouldn’t have taken a trade, or perhaps you exited too early or too late, as well as the times you were spot on with your decisions. It is incredibly easy to dwell on losing trades. This is because humans appear to be programmed to look at the threats in their environment and to focus on negatives. This means we will do what we can to avoid experiencing that again. However, in the trading environment it is not realistic to expect to never lose. One reason many traders take losing trades so badly is the expectation that trading leads to making money, fast. The ideal outcome that you are fantasising about moves further away when you incur a loss and this

contributes towards cognitive dissonance – the mental stress and discomfort caused by two contradictory ideas happening at the same time. In other words, “I should be making money but I’m losing money.” Part of coping with this is learning from it and letting go of it so that you can move on. By taking the time to do this next activity, you’ll be allowing yourself to move on from the negative trade and thus be clear-minded moving forward. Letting go of bad trades Step 1: Get yourself into a relaxed state of hypnosis. Step 2: Once you are in your special room or special place you’ve created in hypnosis, imagine yourself stepping outside into the middle of an open meadow. It’s a warm sunny day, you can feel the gentle breeze on your face, and the grass is soft and green beneath your feet. Perhaps you can even smell freshly cut grass or the fragrance of wild flowers. Step 3: Imagine there is a box on the floor in front of you. Inside the box, I want you to place the lost trade at the bottom. Perhaps you see it as a piece of paper, like a print off of the chart. Or perhaps it’s an amount of money that you have lost on that trade. Or it might be something that represents the emotions you felt. Put in whatever you need to. Visualise it in whatever way makes sense to you. Some people are brilliant at seeing objects and other people can only ever get an impression it’s there. It doesn’t matter. You will still get great results. Step 4: Once the box is full of everything you want to get rid of, close the lid and lock it in place. Step 5: Notice a bunch of balloons nearby and tie them to the box. You’ll see the box starts to lift off the ground and starts floating off into the distance. As you do, you’ll notice feelings of relief flooding through you, like there is a huge weight lifted off your shoulders. As you watch the balloons and box fly away, you know it doesn’t matter any more. You feel calm, you feel relaxed and you feel at ease. Step 6: Return to your own special room and when you are ready, gently drift up out of hypnosis and get ready to continue your day.

11. Results thinking and reframing Interestingly, whenever I talk to clients, traders (experienced and novice), as well as reading articles by traders, one thing seems really clear to me. If you focus on how much profit you could make, you end up losing more money and not being as good a trader as you want to be. If you focus on how much you could lose, profit levels tend to be greater.

I worked with a client last year who would be in a position to take a nice profit, but he spent so much time thinking about how the news might affect him. He would stay in trades longer than intended and end up with a loss. Part of this is greed. Take, for example, the popular game show Deal or No Deal. Each contestant has a box in front of them with an amount of money in it and theoretically they could win up to £250,000. There is also a circle of other boxes around them, also containing amounts up to £250,000. They have to choose and open the other boxes three at a time to eliminate values, and a banker offers the contestant a sum of money for their box dependent on which values have been eliminated when opening the other boxes. Many times the contestant will be offered £25,000 and turn down the offer because of the blind hope they have a sum of money in their box that is higher. They may end the game with 1p or £5, or maybe a few thousand, when they could have won a lot more. I worked with my client on reframing the situation. Before, he would lose more money than he was comfortable with and feel anxious about it. So, when he entered new trades it was all about how much profit he could make. After we had spent time goal-setting and reframing, his trading became more consistent. Whilst he would have several small losing trades, he would have greater profitable trades because he wasn’t being affected by the anxiety and pressures he had been placing on himself. People place so much pressure on themselves. Maybe you could take a trade and make £20,000 on it and a trade that is only £50 or £250 seems worthless. Yet the ‘could’ amount is actually only a theoretical value that does not yet exist. But the loss you could incur is real money: it will exist and have an impact on you. What actually happens in these scenarios is that your self-esteem and belief system get a good battering. You may feel like a failure, or demotivated or stressed. Therefore you need to mitigate that risk so that you accept the loss as part and parcel of trading. You might achieve this by setting stop losses to levels at which you are comfortable with the loss you could make, or a minimum profit target to which you can move a stop loss when the trade goes in your direction. The message here is however you do it, have a plan to manage the risk you are prepared to take. If you are comfortable with the loss on a trade then

you will go on to take better trades rather than staying on a slippery slope to greater problems. So how can you change from focusing on how much money you might have made or you might make in an imaginary scenario? You need to use reframing, which is an NLP technique that helps you change perspective. Research has demonstrated that those who frame things positively rather than negatively are more successful. You can do this outside of hypnosis or you can use it with hypnosis – the choice is yours. Reframing how you experience a losing trade Step 1: As you think about how you react to a losing trade, think about how you could reframe that to a positive. You could start with looking at scenarios that would have been worse, e.g. “At least I didn’t lose all of my money,” or “I only lost X amount.” Step 2: Flip the situation round to a positive. What can you learn from it? Spend time writing it down. What can you learn from that lost trade and how will you do it differently in the future? Thinking about what you’ve learned from the experience often gives you an automatic positive reframe. Step 3: Put it into action. If you know you are only prepared to lose X% then what can you do about it?

Reframing to focus more on risk management and less on potential profits Step 1: A trade can only be in one position at any point in time. You cannot know if you will make a better profit or if you will make a loss. So make your goal realistic. You don’t have to assign a set value to it but you do need to choose boundaries. Step 2: Use affirmations to help you, e.g. “I am happy to risk X and I am happy with profit.” Know that you will be happy with a losing trade because it is within your acceptable risk zone. Step 3: The same as when you chose an acceptable level of risk, choose an acceptable profit range so you know that you are happy with that profit, whether £10,000 or £10. Make it realistic. Step 4: Enjoy your successful trade. Say things to yourself like “I am so happy I have a profit of X,” and “It is brilliant I made £50 because that is much better than losing money.” The more you say it, the more you believe it.

TIP! If you find yourself watching the trade even after you have lost money on it and get annoyed because the outcome would have been different if you had stayed in longer, stop watching it! Make it a ground rule and stick to it. ‘If onlys’, ‘buts’ and ‘should haves’ serve you absolutely no purpose after the event. If you are totally unwilling to change this bad habit then I suggest you look deeper into why that might be. You may need to work more on your self-belief and self-esteem. Reframing isn’t always easy so I suggest you spend time practising. Set aside a few minutes after every trade to focus on the positives of the trade. Before you trade, you’ll find yourself feeling more prepared because you know what your risk levels are. This makes it easier to get better profits and you can play around with your risk management levels so you know where you are comfortable. Reframing using Parts therapy is discussed in the chapter on fear. This will be especially useful to you if you think there may be an element of selfsabotage.

12. Havening to move on from a bad trade Sometimes, it can be very difficult to move on from a particularly bad trade. You may find yourself replaying it over and over again and imagining all the ‘what if’ scenarios. Havening can help you to reduce the negative emotions associated with that particular event and allow you to move on in a constructive manner. Havening to move on from a bad trade Step 1: Start by picking a bad trade you have experienced that affected you emotionally. Assign a value to it between 0 and 10 for how unhappy it made you: 10 being extremely unhappy and 0 being not unhappy at all. Step 2: Think about the event and how it makes you feel. Perhaps close your eyes as you remember it. Step 3: Start stroking your arms from the shoulder down to the elbow in a repetitive movement.

Step 4: Whilst continuing the stroking, imagine yourself standing at the edge of a lake with 23 stones at your side. One at a time, slowly pick up those stones and throw them into the lake. Step 5: As you continue stroking, open your eyes and hum a short tune or ‘ho ho ho’ a tune such as Jingle Bells – yes it might be a bit funny, you are welcome to laugh. Step 6: Move your eyes laterally left and right ten times. Step 7: Take three deep breaths through your nose and close your eyes once again. Step 8: Still stroking now, start counting backwards in threes from 39. It’s not a maths test so don’t worry if you get it wrong! Step 9: Open your eyes and check how you feel on that scale of 0 to 10. If it’s really low then you have changed your own feeling state. It it’s still high, repeat the Havening activity until it’s reduced to a level where you are happier and more comfortable.

For a while you’ll need to keep referring to the instructions for this activity to remember how to use Havening. Go over it until you remember the steps. Not to worry if you mix a couple up – it will still work well for you. I find it amazing that such a seemingly bizarre method has such fantastic results. You can use Havening for dealing with any negative emotion or particular experience, not only for past issues, but also for future worries. I have trained in Havening with a registered practitioner and, if you’d like to investigate Havening more, you’ll find details of how to find practitioners in the final chapter of this book.

Summary Losing trades is an inevitable element of being a trader. When you are dealing with figures outside your comfort zone, losing trades become mentally draining and more stressful than they need to be. This then affects how you trade the next time and so on. This chapter has talked you through how to identify what is happening when you experience a losing trade, understanding why you lost the trade and how to use affirmations to experience losing trades in a more constructive manner. You now know how to create an emotional barrier, thus becoming detached during a trade, as well as how to calm yourself after a losing trade. Finally, we looked at how to reframe your mindset from money-focused to a better management of risk.

CHAPTER FIVE. Stress

T

and Anxiety

his chapter focuses on how to combat and reduce the effects of stress and anxiety. The following topics are covered: 1. What is stress? 2. What is anxiety? 3. How stress and anxiety affect how you trade 4. Activity: understanding your stressors 5. Technique: calm anchors 6. Breathing techniques 7. Technique: blowing up stress 8. Stress-busting affirmations 9. Technique: island of peace

10. Technique: 54321 breathe

1. What is stress? Stress is caused by situations or events that put pressure on us and how we react to those pressures. This means that sometimes you have to manage external pressures being placed on you or you have to develop your emotional resilience to these elements. Stress can contribute to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, which many traders experience. When we are experiencing stress, our brains release hormones called adrenaline and cortisol. These are excitatory hormones which trigger the human ‘fight or flight’ instinct. That is, we find ourselves feeling angry and aggressive (our bodies are preparing to fight), or we run away to avoid the situation (flight). This is very much linked to fear. However, for the purpose of this book, I will keep fear and stress as separate topics.

Quite often traders don’t even realise they are stressed and are unable to identify the signs of stress. To help you with this, some signs of stress are identified in the table below. Feelings of stress

Stress related behaviours

Physical signs

Anxiety Hyper wound up Anxious, nervous, afraid Busy mind Not enjoying what you are doing Depressed Uninterested Lonely

Problems with decision-making Snapping/temperamental Biting nails Not concentrating Not eating properly Restless and twitchy

Shallow breathing Eye strain Lack of sleep Tiredness Headaches High blood pressure Bowel problems Nausea

If you are suffering with stress, whether related to trading or another external stressor, it is so important to tackle it and reduce those stressed feelings. You’ll make better decisions, trade better and be more successful. We all know trading is stressful. This is because markets are unpredictable, volatile and uncontrollable. It is important to realise that you cannot control the markets but you can control how you trade and how you react.

2. What is anxiety? Anxiety encompasses feelings of unease, nervousness, stress and apprehension that can be triggered by certain events or activities. Feelings of anxiety can be due to worrying and feeling upset. Sometimes anxiety is useful to us – it warns us there is something to be concerned about. Sometimes it becomes a pain in the butt and is present when not required, or we become overly anxious when unnecessary. Anxiety can also be brought on by the feeling of waiting for something to happen. Some stress and anxiety can be good for us. For example, before an exam it might make you feel more alert and give you the adrenaline to focus for the duration of the exam. Too much anxiety can make you tired and unable to concentrate. There are many signs of anxiety and some of these are outlined in the following table. Psychological

Physical

Hyper-alert

Pounding/racing heart

Being on edge/unable to relax Feeling tearful Needing reassurance Feeling worried or uneasy most of the time Having difficulty sleeping Feeling tired Lack of concentration

Breathing faster Palpitations Feeling nauseous Chest pains Headaches Sweating Loss of appetite/stomach pains Frequent bowel movements

3. The effect of stress and anxiety on trading Feelings of stress and anxiety influence your trading. It’s a vicious cycle to be caught in because stress and anxiety can be caused by various aspects of trading, for example the possibility of losing money, or making the wrong decisions. This stress and anxiety can then negatively affect your decisionmaking, how well you hold your nerve and how you react to various elements of the trade, which then leads to more stress when trades don’t go the way you want. As I touched on earlier, a certain amount of stress is positive because it increases how alert you are mentally, which can increase your ability to think quickly and enhance your decision-making ability. It can give you a burst of adrenaline and, in fact, this draws many people to trading because they like the buzz or the natural high it can give you. Whether it’s trading that is causing you stress and anxiety or external elements, it’s important to identify them and look at how you can reduce their impact. For example, if you have money worries away from trading, you’ll be more stressed when you trade if you involve that aspect of stress. If you have another job and struggle to find time for trading, that may cause stress. You could combat this by having strict times when you trade, or by reducing or changing your hours at your other work place.

4. Understanding your stressors On a piece of paper, I’d like you to note everything that is causing you stress and anxiety (e.g. financial worries). This includes whilst trading and outside trading. Afterwards, I’d like you to write down some

resolutions or ways you can reduce the impact and effect of the stress and anxiety (e.g. change mindset, dissociate trading from personal life). This is important because it will help you to interpret the stress and anxiety in a different way and reduce feelings of helplessness. Remember you can take control. After identifying everything that contributes to your stress levels and feelings of anxiety, and the practical steps you might take to reduce the impact, the next step is to include some techniques to help remove feelings of stress.

5. Calm anchors An anchor is any stimulus that evokes a consistent response from a person. An easy example is the smell of popcorn reminding you of the cinema. Or the smell of beer reminding you of a certain night out. Anchoring is an NLP term and it is the process of associating a response (e.g. emotion, feeling or behaviour) with something that is happening in your environment. This is useful because it means that you can train your brain to create a particular emotional response to a particular event in your life. You can use anchors for feelings and emotions so that you can make your internal state match the external behaviour. At the moment you might find watching the trade (external behaviour) extremely stressful (internal state), when what you actually want is to feel calm and focused when watching the trade. Therefore you need to anchor the feelings that you want to the scenario. This next technique will focus on anchoring the feeling of calm to a finger tap. So whenever you need to feel calm, you can use the finger tap to automatically induce those feelings, no matter where you are. You can also use this technique to anchor a variety of other states. Part Three includes advice on anchoring for motivation and drive – this will give you some more ideas on how to use anchoring. Setting a calm anchor

Step 1: Get into a nice relaxed state of hypnosis. Step 2: Think of a time when you felt really calm and good about yourself. Make it real in your mind. Remember the smells, the sounds and really picture it in your mind – make it as vivid as possible. Step 3: When the memory is as real as you can make it in your mind, as if you were there now, and you feel really calm, just tap your fingers on your side or on the side of the chair using only your left hand. Step 4: Relax your hand and think about somewhere neutral, such as your bathroom or the supermarket. Step 5: Make that calm memory really vivid in your mind again. Using all your senses, make it as real as you can. Be there now. Step 6: Once you are feeling really calm, start tapping those fingers again as you think about that calm feeling and that memory. Step 7: Relax your hand and let your mind drift to somewhere neutral again, such as your kitchen or a shop. Step 8: Repeat that another three or four times. You are anchoring the feelings of calm with the finger tapping. Step 9: Let your mind drift and go blank, or perhaps stay in that neutral place for a couple of minutes. Then think about trading. Imagine yourself at your desk or wherever you trade, see yourself trading. As you do so, start tapping those fingers and notice how calm you feel. You are bringing those feelings of calm into the trading environment. Step 10: Repeat this a few times. Step 11: Gradually bring yourself out of hypnosis. Step 12: Next time you are trading, tap your fingers just as you did in the activity and notice how calm you feel. The tapping is triggering the calm feelings which you’ll start to associate with trading. You can also use this if you get a sudden onset of anxiety or stress when trading.

TIP! Remember to practise this regularly. Use it or lose it. The more you practise, the more effective it will be. You can also use this calm anchor at a specific time in your trading day, for example, when you set up a trade. Your mind will begin to associate the finger tap with calm and associate the setting up of a trade with feelings of calm.

6. Breathing techniques Breathing properly is so important. That’s why I keep mentioning it. Don’t skip it assuming it’s obvious or unimportant because you will be missing a trick!

Serotonin is the body’s happy hormone; we release it when we are happy and calm. When we are stressed and anxious our brains release dopamine and norepinephrine. These hormones are associated with our fight or flight instinct and are excitatory. We need these hormones because they aid learning, but too much gives us the jitters. Serotonin is an inhibitory hormone so it inhibits dopamine and norepinephrine. So, when we are stressed or anxious we need a good old dose of serotonin. How do we get that? Firstly, breathing through your nose rather than your mouth. Breathing through your nose releases serotonin and slows your breathing down. Slowing your breathing down helps slow down your heart rate, which will reduce any heart pounding or palpitations. It decreases feelings of stress and helps enhance feelings of calmness so you can take control again. Breathing techniques Technique one: Breathe in for the count of four (through your nose) and out for the count of eight (or six if eight is too long) through your nose. As you get better at this you can breathe in for the count of six and out for the count of ten. It does take practice to slow down that out-breath if you aren’t used to it. It’s a great idea to spend time practising breathing like this every day. Spend a quiet five or ten minutes practising this every day. Repeat it for as many breaths as you need until you feel calm. Then let your breathing return to normal. Technique two: If you are in a heightened state of anxiety and feeling unable to use the technique above then this is a really great alternative breathing technique. It’s also great for pain management. Breathe in through your nose for the count of 20 (a fast count) and out through your nose for the count of 20 (again a fast count). Even counting at a fast pace, it’s still a nice deep breath in and deep breath out. Practise this five to ten times. This is particularly useful if you are feeling angry or frustrated. Technique three: This is great if you are in a state of panic and feel a bit like you are gasping for breath. Quite often you’ve just forgotten to breathe out. Place one hand just above your belt line and one hand on your chest. Open your mouth and gently sigh. As you sigh, let your shoulders relax. Close your mouth and pause for a few seconds. Inhale slowly through your nose and push your stomach out. Pause for a moment then exhale out of your mouth and let your stomach go back to normal. Do this five times.

7. Stress busting

Sometimes we hold on to the stress that we experience. We replay events in our minds. For example, a silly decision made whilst trading might cause you to replay that moment in your mind over and over again, using different scenarios to see different outcomes, adding to your stress and frustration because you know what you would or should have done differently. That’s great on the one hand because you are reflecting and you know what you’d do differently, but it can also keep you in a stressed mindset because you aren’t getting rid of the negativity and stress. It’s all very well recognising stress and anxiety but how do you get rid of it or reduce it to a constructive level so you can carry on trading after a bad trade, or whilst you are in a trade so you can keep going? This next technique is excellent for reducing or removing negative feelings and emotions almost instantly. Blowing up stress This technique can be done both in and out of hypnosis. It’s a brilliant ‘on the go’ technique because it is simple, easy and quick! Step 1: Close your eyes and focus on where in your body you are experiencing the stress/anxiety. Typical areas include the head, chest, stomach and arms. It may be limited to one area or spread over several. Step 2: Focus on that element of stress/anxiety and give it a colour that links to how it feels, e.g. many people use red or black as they perceive them as negative colours. Use the colour that feels right for you. Step 3: Add a shape to that feeling. Perhaps it is a sharp shape or a bulging shape. You could even make it an object if a shape doesn’t fit with you. If you are experiencing the effects of stress/anxiety in multiple parts of your body you can either do one part at a time or visualise the parts coming together in one area of the body. Step 4: Give the coloured shape a weight, size and consistency. You now have your object of stress and you know it’s easier to get rid of an object. Step 5: Change the colour of the object to a colour that is calmer and gentler for you. Notice how good that makes you feel already. Step 6: Now change the weight of the object and the consistency, e.g. if it started off heavy and hard, try making it light and soft. Again, reflect on that and see how much better it feels. You can play around with this until the stress/anxiety feeling is now totally different. Step 7: Finally, imagine that new item with its calm colour, different shape and weight. Now shrink it down until it’s a nice small size and imagine blowing it up! Perhaps you stick it in a firework and it blows up away from you. Or maybe you take

it out and put it next to a bomb that blows up. Or perhaps you take the object and shoot a missile at it. You’ll feel so much better and notice that you have gotten rid of that negative feeling in record time. Once again, the more you do this, the faster and more effective you’ll be.

Another technique to combine with this or use on its own to get rid of stress and anxiety is affirmation. As mentioned earlier, Part Three has a whole chapter on creating your own affirmations. However, I am going to include some of my favourites here for you to use. Stress busting affirmations “I give myself permission to let go of the stress, somehow, right now.” (This is one of my favourites because we rarely give ourselves permission to do anything because we are so busy beating ourselves up.) “I am calm and relaxed, I am calm and relaxed, I am calm and I am relaxed.” (By saying you are calm and relaxed your body will follow suit and calm down.) “Anxiety is leaving my body quickly, leaving me focused and calm.” Use all of these or just one and repeat several times over either out loud or in your head. These work really well if combined with the breathing techniques outlined above.

8. Reducing anxiety levels You can use breathing, calm anchors and blowing up techniques to combat anxiety as well as stress. Sometimes, anxiety can be harder to get rid of than stress because it is a manifestation of stress. Do you find yourself anxiously watching the charts? Does your anxiety grow every time the market turns in the wrong direction whilst you wait to see if it reverses again? Do you find yourself glued to the screen waiting to see what happens next? All of this can be really unhealthy for you and therefore affect your trading. You already know this. The next two techniques I outline are similar but both very useful for reducing anxiety levels in minutes.

9. Island of peace This technique involves visualisation as well as breathing to help reduce anxiety and restore inner balance, calming your mind to allow you to make better decisions. Island of peace Step 1: Guide yourself into hypnosis using your preferred method, ending up in that special room you’ve created for yourself. Step 2: Imagine a deserted island or a beautiful beach – perhaps somewhere you have been before – a place where you feel happy, calm and safe. Make it vivid and clear in your mind. Can you hear the waves gently lapping on the shore? Does the sun feel warm on your face? Do you feel sand between your toes? Step 3: Take three deep breaths whilst enjoying this island of peace. Step 4: Think of somewhere neutral. Once your mind is clear, move on to the next step. Step 5: Think of a time you felt anxious when trading. Spend some time really thinking about those feelings and the situation. Notice how you start to feel that level of anxiety again. Where do you feel it in your body? Has your breathing changed? That’s great – you want to feel anxious now. Step 6: Take a deep breath and, as you breathe out, notice you are letting go of the anxiety. Take a second deep breath and you can visualise your island of peace coming closer, feeling calmer. Take a third deep breath and you are back on your island and feeling totally calm, with no anxiety. Step 7: Enjoy that for a moment as you realise you feel peaceful. Then think of somewhere neutral. Step 8: Repeat steps five, six and seven a few times. Step 9: Come out of hypnosis when you are ready.

TIP! Practise the ‘Island of peace’ technique often and soon you won’t need hypnosis and you won’t need to remember being anxious – you’ll just need your three deep breaths to take you to your island of peace when faced with moments of anxiety.

10. 54321 breathe This final technique in the stress and anxiety chapter is another breathing technique with some visualisation aimed at reducing your focus on the

anxiety by directing your brain to think of something else. You cannot think of two things at the same time – it is proven to be impossible. So if you are doing one of these techniques you can’t be thinking about stress and anxiety. 54321 breathe This is simple and easy and requires no hypnosis, but start off using hypnosis anyway: the more you practise hypnosis, the easier and quicker it will be to drop into hypnosis and use it whenever you need to. Step 1: Guide yourself into hypnosis and your own special room. Step 2: Visualise yourself sitting in a chair with a chalk blackboard next to you. At the moment the blackboard is empty. Step 3: In a moment take five nice big deep breaths in, breathing out slowly each time. With each breath in, imagine the number appearing on the blackboard in front of you, and as you breathe out the number slowly fades away. Step 4: Start with number five and count backwards: FIVE – take a nice deep breath in, seeing the number five appear on your chalkboard. Breathe out slowly, watching the number five fade away. FOUR – take a nice deep breath in, seeing the number four appear on your chalkboard. Breathe out slowly, watching the number four fade away. THREE – and so on. Step 5: After you get to number one, inside your mind whisper “relax” over and over again. Step 6: Repeat the 54321 breathe technique as many times as you need. Step 7: Guide yourself out of hypnosis.

TIP! You will eventually be able to use the 54321 breathe technique without the hypnosis element and find that each time you use it, your anxiety reduces or disappears completely.

Summary Stress and anxiety can have a hugely detrimental effect on the decisions you make and how you trade. An element of stress and anxiety is healthy, but if it’s something you experience on a regular basis you need to learn how to reduce those levels. The techniques outlined in this chapter will help you do that.

If your anxiety is still causing a problem, I recommend you seek professional help from a hypnotherapist. In Part Three there is guidance on how to choose a qualified therapist.

CHAPTER SIX. Negative

Self-Talk

T

his chapter discusses negative self-talk and specifically how to reduce the impact of negative self-talk and increase positive self-talk. The following topics are covered in this chapter: 1. Understanding negative self-talk 2. Activity: my self-talk 3. Technique: pattern interrupter 4. Activity: changing your language 5. Technique: turn down the volume

1. Understanding negative self-talk Do you ever find yourself narrating your life as you go through it? We all do it. Sometimes we are talking about other people, sometimes we are trying to think through a problem, or sometimes we say things about ourselves. Negative self-talk is that voice in our heads that says negative and unhelpful things. For example, “I am so rubbish at this,” or, “I always get this wrong, maybe I’ll never make any money in trading.” The problem with this form of self-talk is that it is negative and demeaning of ourselves, and also self-defeating. If your negative self-talk is saying something like, “I am going to lose this trade again, this always happens to me,” then you are very likely to lose the trade because you are programmed to make the decisions and/or behaviours that will cause that to happen. Obviously not all losing trades can be prevented. Nonetheless many of the trades you lose could have been prevented, or at least the loss reduced. Self-talk is generally skewed towards the negative for most people. It is especially common when people are experiencing stressful situations, depression and anxiety. Research in the sporting environment has

demonstrated that those who have high levels of negative self-talk perform worse than those who demonstrate high levels of positive self-talk. There is also a growing body of evidence to show that anxiety levels before a sporting event correlate with negative self-talk during the event. So the more anxious you are beforehand, the more negative self-talk there will be. This research translates to the world of trading. You are constantly having to make decisions and if you doubt yourself, for whatever reason, there is a high possibility it will influence your decisions. In hypnotherapy, many therapists work with clients on the concept of ‘believing is seeing’ rather than ‘seeing is believing’. If you think about what you want in life, rather than what you don’t, then you will always be working towards your goal. This is something we will discuss further in Part Three. It is worth a mention here because if your negative self-talk is always focused on what you don’t want, e.g. “I never do well when I swing trade,” or “I am rubbish in short-term trades,” then you will work towards that reality. If you are experiencing negative self-talk you need to work on changing that to positive self-talk. This chapter outlines some methods you can use to do this. However, you need to be mindful not to confuse positive self-talk with over confidence or negative self-talk with making guarded decisions that can prove very beneficial. Evidence from psychologists who researched mood in foreign exchange trading found that being over confident led to poor decision-making and higher losses than those who were in a bad mood who tended to be more cautious in their approach. Take that in context – the research looked at mood, not self-talk, and at over-confidence. We all know that being over-confident can lead to negative consequences such as accidents when driving, drinking too much alcohol, etc. Changing negative self-talk to positive self-talk is different to becoming over-confident.

2. My self-talk The first step, as always, is to identify your self-talk and really listen to what you are saying to yourself, so you can look at whether you need help to change it.

The first activity is to write down examples of your self-talk over the next few days. It’s important to do it over a few days to get a balanced representation. Do this across two areas: trading and everything else. Write it in two columns: one for self-talk during trading and one for self-talk during the day or outside of trading. Now that you’ve written this down, what do you think? Do you think your self-talk is very positive, very negative, or a mixed bag? Is there a difference between your everyday self-talk and your self-talk during trading? Is your self-talk related to whether you make profit on a trade or not? Is it linked to your self-confidence? How does it link to the other topics in this book? Most people listen to their self-talk but aren’t always aware of it or of the impact it can have on their lives. You will be able to see from the activity you have just completed that your self-talk does influence your behaviours and actions. The problem with negative self-talk is that it often feels true. You won’t often hear yourself saying “I always fail” and then hear your self-talk correct that saying, “That’s ridiculous! You succeed in loads of things.” Once you start looking at it you will usually be able to see that your selftalk does exaggerate and is often inaccurate. You’ll also learn how you can change that self-talk to be more positive and more focused on the outcomes you want. Reframing is a good place to start. Look at the following questions and see how they apply to your negative self-talk: Are there other ways I could look at the outcome? If I were looking for a positive in this situation, what would it be? Will it matter in two years’ time? Is this way of thinking helping me to achieve my goals as a trader? What can I learn from this to help me think differently?

3. Pattern interrupter

We all speak in patterns and our language patterns tend to reflect how we think and feel about life. For example, some people are very visual, so when talking they use expressions such as “Can you see what I am saying?” or “I see what you mean.” Other people are more auditory and use expressions such as “I hear your point.” And other people are more tactile and talk in terms of feelings, for example, “I feel that this is the right course of action.” Our language patterns also show how we see ourselves. As humans, we seem programmed to think negatively of ourselves so every decision we make or action we take is open to critique. I hear it from traders all the time and see how their language reflects how they really feel. For example, “Why can’t I ever get it right?” or “I do so well then I always mess it up!” Both of these expressions are common and indicate a repetitive behaviour. If we think it, we tend to act it and if we act it, it reinforces our thoughts. If you change the language you use, you can change your behaviour without even realising it. So, another method for combating negative self-talk is a pattern interrupter. A pattern interrupter is a way of stopping words, thoughts or behaviours in their tracks. It causes an individual a level of confusion because they weren’t expecting it. Negative self-talk is an unproductive state. I use pattern interrupters all the time with clients and in a variety of different ways to confuse the brain and re-pattern a thought. Here are a couple of examples: The Outburst – every time you say or think something negative about yourself, interrupt by shouting “Rubbish!” (it’s probably best to do this in your head) as soon as you notice it. This will stop the thought immediately and distract you. Use and, but and should correctly – for example if you hear yourself thinking, “I want to take longer-term trades but I can’t seem to stay in them long enough,” swap it to “I don’t know how to stay in a trade long enough, but I will develop that skill.” Make a conscious effort to do this. Another example is when you want to rely less on other traders giving you indicators and be able to interpret charts yourself. If you find yourself saying, “I’ll never be able to spot

indicators on my own,” swap it to “I don’t know how to spot indicators yet but I will learn over time.” This technique helps to repattern the way you think so that, rather than being defeatist, you recognise that you are still learning.

4. Change your language It may seem very simple and unimportant but changing your wording and rephrasing has a massive effect on you. For example, you can swap “I am so stupid to have lost that trade,” to “I felt really silly when I lost that trade.” What is happening in this example is that you are changing the statement from being a fact about yourself to something that you were feeling and experiencing. Another example is, “I am an idiot for not checking the charts properly,” to “Checking the charts properly is something I will remember and make time to do.” Take some of the examples you wrote down at the beginning of this chapter and rephrase them using this approach.

Recognise it as a Part Our personalities and identities are made up of many different ‘Parts’, for example there is part of you that wants to go and do some exercise and part of you that wants to stay on the sofa, or part of you that wants an expensive item and part of you that knows it costs too much. Your inner self-talk comes from these Parts. So this Part of you that creates the negative self-talk has an identity and a purpose. A quick method that can be very successful is to give that Part a silly name, e.g. Little Miss Bossy Boots, the Nag, Boring Boris, Silly Billy, etc. It becomes harder to take that voice seriously if you have made it seem silly. Give it a look as well. Imagine that Part looking really silly, such as wearing funny shoes.

5. Turn down the volume

The problem with negative self-talk is that it tends to be really loud and right there in your inner ear shouting at you. This next technique can be done outside of hypnosis. As always, you can use hypnosis too if you wish, but this is a practical technique you can use ‘live’ if negative self-talk creeps in. Turn it down will you! Step 1: Talk to yourself in your head for a moment. Talk about something neutral such as the weather or what you need to get from the supermarket. Step 2: Visualise a dial in front of you. It might be on the desk next to your computer or it might be in the corner of your eye on a shelf or on your wrist like a watch. This dial has a scale of 0–10 on it. Ten is maximum volume and 0 is no sound at all. Step 3: As you listen to yourself talking about something neutral, imagine being able to increase and decrease the volume of your self-talk. Practise making it really LOUD and making it really quiet and completely muted. Step 4: Practise with the negative self-talk. Every time something pops into your mind, practise muting it. You may find the volume drops slowly or you may find you can instantly switch it off. Keep practising.

Summary It is not easy to change the way we think about ourselves, because this is something we have learned to do over many years. Changing how you think about yourself and the language you use will take time and practice. Remember that the way you do anything is the way you do everything, which is to say that if you are messy at home, your trading area might be messy and if you are slap-dash in your approach to life, you may not be diligent when trading. But you can change all of that. If you spend time diligently working through this chapter and this book and make those positive changes, you’ll find yourself becoming diligent in other areas of your life as well. Negative self-talk is an indicator for lack of self-confidence or self-esteem. Part Three offers some great techniques to increase your confidence and esteem.

CHAPTER SEVEN. The

O

Role of Fear

ne of the biggest challenges traders must overcome is fear. This chapter has been designed to help you do just that. We will explore:

1. The role of fear 2. Activity: identifying your fears 3. Reframing your behaviours 4. Technique: conflict resolution reframe 5. Technique: fear release 6. Irrational fears and the funny trader technique Fear can and will stop you from reaching your full potential as a trader. Even professional traders can be affected by fear from time to time. Fear comes in many shapes and forms and can have a wide variety of influences on how you trade. Have you ever found that you talk yourself out of taking a trade? Fear can stop you entering trades when you can see the correct entry signal and you should be taking that trade. Fear can also mean you fail to exit a trade at the right moment and end up with larger losses. You might find yourself avoiding charts, procrastinating and making excuses so that you don’t trade. You may notice that you are missing important signals and information when you are reviewing the charts. Fear can also cause you to end a trade when you are in profit by a small amount rather than staying in to gain a larger profit. Are you a system hopper? Do you find it hard to commit to one particular method or strategy? Are you unsure whether you want to be a day trader or prefer long-term trades, so try both? Are you in a situation where you can’t quite find what works for you? Being unable to commit is also a sign of fear.

You can be fearful of failing – failure as a trader, failing to make money, failure to prove yourself, failure to provide for your family, failing to be good enough at something. The list can go on. You can also be fearful of success, which can lead to self-sabotage (as can fear of failure). Whenever I mention subconscious self-sabotage or a fear of success to clients, I nearly always get raised eyebrows or nods of agreement whereby many traders already recognise the element of self-sabotage. Indeed, I wonder if you are already identifying with some of these ideas. Nonetheless, why wouldn’t you want to succeed? Why wouldn’t you want to trade well and why would you have reason to deliberately fail? As you can see, fear can have a debilitating effect on how well you trade and how successful you are as a trader. The techniques outlined in this chapter are designed to help you reduce the impact of fear when trading and, even better, resolve it completely. Earlier, we discussed the importance of affirmations and now is the perfect time to use an affirmation or two. It can either be one that you have created yourself or an example, such as, “I give myself permission to let go of any fear that I have, somehow, right now.” Just spend a few moments using that affirmation before moving on to the next part of this chapter.

1. The role of fear Fear is nature’s way of ensuring we avoid situations that put us in danger. It triggers our fight or flight instinct whereby we have adrenaline coursing through our bodies. You may also experience your pulse racing, sweating, or behaviours that remove you from the trading environment. Fear isn’t only designed to move us away from physical danger. It is also designed to help humans avoid situations of emotional and psychological danger. This is why trading is such a minefield: because it isn’t just about making or losing money. It’s about dreams, hopes and your self-worth. When you are employed, if you have a bad day it doesn’t always matter so much. You just put it down as ‘one of those days’. If you have a bad trade it can really impact your confidence, self-belief and self-esteem, as well as how you perceive your future.

If something makes you feel bad, why would you want to do it? Hence behaviours such as creative avoidance or coming out of a trade with only a small profit rather than holding on for a bigger profit. Your subconscious is stopping you and trying to protect you from a situation where you might feel bad. I worked with a client who came to see me because he could never break his profit point. He set himself a goal of achieving X pips a day on the trade and whenever he achieved that number, or close to it, he would exit the trade. It was irritating to him because he was missing out on greater profits but he couldn’t help it. His anxiety would rise to an uncomfortable level as the trade progressed, and then completely disappear the moment he was out of the trade with a small profit. We used hypno-analysis to look at why this might be. It became clear that previously he had run a business that had failed, he had been put in a financial mess and had become very depressed. It wasn’t a fear of losing money, it wasn’t a fear of failing at something else; it was a fear that he might ever feel that psychologically low again that had stopped him taking bigger risks. Once my client had resolved those feelings and worked through this element of himself, he started taking bigger profits and being able to stay in trades past his initial goal. He did this easily and with confidence. Every behaviour has a positive intent, including self-sabotage. What this means is that every action you take or behaviour you display that is negative for your trading comes from some positive intention. For example, fear. Your fear is there to protect you and it serves a very valuable purpose. However, our subconscious minds sometimes get it a bit wrong and need a little help moving past that faulty learning – the faulty learning in this case being that losing money on a trade is not a life or death situation and so the fight or flight response triggered is unnecessary. The good news is you can change that faulty learning so that you can reduce the physiological responses that occur whilst you trade. Below are several activities designed to help you identify your fears, process them, change your fear-related behaviours and remove fear. Work through these activities in order to get the maximum impact. You may want to do this several times and review your progress.

2. Identifying your fears Using a piece of paper, jot down anything that might be causing you fear. Spend time reflecting upon this and all that you know about yourself. Once you have completed this, write down all the mistakes or behaviours you display when trading that may be linked to or caused by fear. This is important because it’s these behaviours you are aiming to change, so by writing out this list you have something to measure yourself by. It also gives you the opportunity to identify and focus on what you want to change. Some of the things in this list may come from the list you completed at the beginning of Part One. If you need some prompting, consider the list of symptoms of fear that I included at the start of this chapter. It is by no means a complete list, but it can form the basis of a good start for self-reflection.

3. Reframing behaviours To make sense of the things we encounter day to day and to interpret the world that we live in, humans are programmed to categorise things and create shortcuts for processing information, performing actions and communicating with other people. This is something that happens automatically from the day we are born and we don’t even realise we are doing it. In the world of psychology, we call these schemas. Schemas are used by us to make sense of our world; they influence attention, information processing and perceptions of our environment. A very basic example of a schema is a chair. There are many different types of chair out there and every time you come across a new type of chair, you already know it’s a chair, even if it’s unusual and you’ve never seen that particular one before. We recognise a chair when we see one. We also create schemas for actions such as driving a car. This is why, after a period of learning and practice, driving becomes an almost subconscious behaviour. When was the last time you thought about changing gear? So how do schemas and framing relate to trading? A great example is a client who came to see me because he would dither when entering and exiting trades. He found it hard to make a decision and commit to it. Thus

he would often exit a trade too late and come out with a huge loss or he would exit early with smaller profits than intended. To overcome this, we worked on reframing his negative behaviours using Parts Therapy, which is outlined in more detail below. Essentially, I worked with the Part of him that was scared to make a decision and separated the negative behaviour from the positive intention. I coached him into creating a new response to trading that meant he was able to be more decisive and enter and exit trades more assertively, with less dithering.

4. Parts therapy There are many varieties of Parts Therapy and many therapists, like myself, use a variety of Parts techniques to address individuals’ needs. Let me start by explaining what I mean by Parts. Here is a very simplistic example – a person goes into a coffee shop to buy a coffee and sees an enormous chocolate cake that looks moist and tasty. But this person is currently on a mission to lose weight. Part of this person wants the cake and Part of this person wants to lose weight and so knows eating the cake isn’t going to help them. They make one of two decisions: either buy the cake and eat it or just buy the coffee they’d originally gone to the shop for. If their Parts are in agreement, whatever decision the person made, they will feel happy about it. If those Parts did not agree then the person will feel unhappy, e.g. they may feel guilty for eating the cake or they may feel deprived because they didn’t eat the cake. This is a very basic example but the important thing to note is that we are all made up of many Parts within our personalities. If our Parts are conflicting then we won’t feel satisfied and happy with life. So how does this apply to traders and to fear? Simple: fear gets in the way of trading to the best of your abilities. There is a Part of you that is afraid, whether of success, failure, losing money, etc., and there is a Part of you that wants to be a great trader. During a client session, the therapist will act as an intermediary to open discussions between the Parts and help the client resolve whatever internal psychological issues are at work.

However, you can do some Parts work on your own. You need to be a little open-minded and read through the instructions several times for this next technique, which looks at conflict resolution. If you can understand and resolve what’s underneath your fears then you can start to work on building a trading career without that fear looming in the background. Fear: Conflict resolution reframe For this technique, use the behaviours linked to fear you outlined in the activity earlier in this chapter and work through them one by one. As you go through that list, you can amend where needed. Make sure you have a pen and paper with you. This technique should not be done in hypnosis because you’ll probably want to make notes as you go along. Step 1: Pick the behaviour that you don’t like – we will use ‘exiting trades too early’ for this example. Think about this Part of you. The Part that exits too early. Perhaps you can give it a name to make it easy, e.g. Bob. Step 2: Greet Bob, thank this Part for joining you in this conversation. This is a conversation between your Parts and it will help you focus properly if you do this. Don’t worry if you feel a bit silly. Go with it. Step 3: Acknowledge that this Part of you, Bob, makes you exit trades too early because it is trying to do something positive for you, even if you don’t understand why it’s a positive action. It’s important to remember here that every action and way we behave is based on some positive intent. Step 4: Ask Bob if he will communicate with you at a conscious level and thank him – you may find you notice that what you see, hear and feel seems a little different. The subconscious mind communicates in funny ways so you may feel different or you may feel the same. Step 5: The next step is to ask the Part what its positive intention is behind the behaviour you want to change. For example, “Bob, I’d love to know the reasons behind exiting trades too early. Is it because you are concerned I will lose too much money? Is it because you are worried about how life will change if I make a lot of money?” Spend time thinking of appropriate questions and your subconscious will allow the answers to pop into your head. You will know which answer is correct. Step 6: Tell Bob that you understand the intention behind the behaviour of exiting trades too early and that what you have learned from this is that Bob wants you to succeed in life. This is acknowledging that this Part of you is an ally and not an enemy. Step 7: Ask that Part of you, Bob – if there are better ways that he can help you succeed in life, would he be willing to use them? Bob should say yes as this Part is an ally. If Bob says no, perhaps explain to Bob that trading means a lot to you and exiting trades early is not helpful. It would be more helpful to be encouraged to stay in trades a little longer. Step 8: Ask Bob to think of some creative ways he can help you to succeed at trading. You will find numerous ideas spring out. Some ideas will work well, others

will not. This is a brainstorming exercise and you can write these down if you need to. Step 9: Ask Bob to choose two or three behaviours from the list he helped brainstorm that he thinks will help you succeed. Step 10: Ask Bob if he is willing to take responsibility for those new behaviours and helping you to use them to be successful. Again, you should find Bob says yes. If he says no, you need to explore why that might be. Go back a few steps to discuss these options with Bob and brainstorm the ideas. Step 11: Assuming Bob has agreed to these new behaviours, summarise it for Bob. For example, “Bob, we have worked together to understand exiting trades too early isn’t the best way to help me be successful. Bob, you have said you will help me by [insert those two or three new behaviours]. We are both happy with this decision and I know you will help me. Thank you.” You’ll notice that this Part of you is now more satisfied and you know how to move forward. It can seem a bit crazy but trust me, it works. You may need to work through a few different behaviours and Parts but you’ll soon notice an improvement.

5. Fear release Being able to let go of your fears is key to moving forward towards success as a trader (or any other part of your life). Choosing to acknowledge that fear but to move on from it and not let it hold you back will help you to feel in control and will improve your confidence and decision making. You will be able to hold your nerve more easily and will feel less stress and anxiety. Fear release is an excellent tool for letting go of multiple contributors to fear that may be affecting how well you trade. Fear release Step 1: Guide yourself into hypnosis and into your own special room. Step 2: Imagine yourself sitting in that comfortable chair in your own special room and now see yourself sitting on a boat in a dock, the sea gently moving you. Nothing too much, just a little so you know it’s a calm day. Smell the sea air, hear some seagulls. Step 3: You’ll notice a huge box made out of stone in the boat. This is for you to fill up with all your fears that are having an influence on your life and how you trade. Put in items such as pictures of people who have had a negative influence on you, e.g. through undue pressure or negative comments, certain styles of trade that didn’t work for you, charts of previously taken bad trades, certain repeated bad behaviours, money, debt, etc. Once the box is full, put the stone lid on. You’ll notice it’s heavy. A chain will appear so wrap it round the stone box and padlock it shut.

Step 4: Drive your boat out to sea, watching the dock disappear behind you, until you are surrounded by nothing but deep blue sea. When you are ready, pick up the heavy stone box and throw it over into the sea. Hear the splash as it hits the water and watch it disappear out of sight into the depths of the ocean. Notice how light you feel, how free you feel. Sit back in your boat, enjoy the sun on your face, the soft breeze, the feelings of peace and calm. Step 5: Steer your boat back to shore, return to your own special room and revel in the delights of how free you are feeling. Step 6: Bring yourself out of hypnosis.

6. Irrational fears and the funny trader technique Sometimes our fears are irrational. They are based on a level of selfpreservation, so again they come from a positive intent, but they can escalate quickly. First, you worry about losing money on a trade, then the fear turns into losing your whole account, then not being able to pay your bills, being homeless, and dying. It sounds rash and extreme but the point is that irrationality can take over. Sometimes we can lighten the strength of the fear by making fun of it or making it look silly. Take spiders for example. A picture of a real tarantula looks frightening compared to a cartoon spider wearing a bowler hat and big red round shoes! This is yet another form of reframing, but it works very well. Funny trader This is a great technique to resolve fear during trading if you find fear stops you in your tracks – the same for anxiety too. Although I have suggested making humorous changes, if you can’t think of any, just use changes that make it better: perhaps losing less money, or something nice happening. The idea is that by working on changing that first fearful trading event in some way, you reduce the level of fear you experience. You will need to use hypnosis for this. Step 1: Guide yourself into hypnosis and your own special room. Step 2: Imagine you are sitting in an empty cinema, with a remote control on your lap. Step 3: On the screen you are watching the first time you can remember fear striking during a trade. Perhaps you went for a big trade or risked too much money. Once you’ve picked the earliest episode, press play and watch yourself on the cinema screen. Where were you? What were you doing? What was in the room with you? What was happening in the trade?

Step 4: Once you’ve watched that clip all the way through, I want you to rewind the video footage and this time, when you press play, change something about the scene that makes it a little funny or less stressful. Perhaps you are trading matchsticks or your computer has turned into an animated character. Watch it all the way through and notice it starting to feel a little different. Step 5: Rewind the video clip and add another change to it when you press play. Perhaps you can’t take yourself so seriously when you are dressed in a monkey onesie or as a giant lemon. Notice again, as you watch it, that you feel a bit better. A bit more calm, a bit amused maybe. Step 6: Rewind the video clip and make one further change, for example, comedy music playing in the background. Then hit play and watch yourself taking that trade on an animated computer, in a monkey onesie listening to comedy music. Suddenly it no longer causes you fear at all. Step 7: Guide yourself out of hypnosis.

Summary This chapter has allowed you to identify your fears and the behaviours associated with them. It has helped you work through how you can change those behaviours, as well as how to release those fears and reduce the negative emotions attached to the trading scenario.

PART THREE. PERSONAL

DEVELOPMENT

S

o far, this book has dealt with the mistakes and challenges traders face and combating psychological elements that may have been affecting how you trade. The final part of this book focuses on personal development. Personal development is just as important as keeping up on the latest strategies and trading technologies available. This is because you can always improve and sometimes we forget the mindset ‘basics’ of trading such as our confidence levels, mental preparation and goals for the future. Part Three outlines a variety of strategies and techniques to help across different areas of personal development. You’ll be able to combine these new techniques with those outlined in the previous chapters to improve your success as a trader, whatever success means to you. In particular, we look at: 1. Visualisation – aiming for success 2. Affirmations 3. Modelling success 4. Boosting confidence and motivation 5. Mental preparation and discipline 6. Building your future 7. Finding a suitable hypnotherapist

CHAPTER EIGHT. Visualisation

–

Aiming for Success

V

isualisation is a powerful tool that you can utilise to help programme your mind towards your goals. You can use visualisation, or guided imagery as it’s sometimes called, to create massive changes in your life. This is because, when using visualisation, you are moving towards thinking about what you want to achieve as opposed to focusing only on what’s not right in your life. This chapter is all about visualisation and how to use it. The following topics are covered: 1. What is visualisation? 2. Guided visualisation 3. Technique: successful trades 4. Technique: visions of the future

1. What is visualisation? Visualisation – the ability to create a mental image – is the brain’s way of creating a representation in the mind of your view of the outside world and how you perceive your environment, how you remember events and how you see what the future may hold for you. We use mental imagery as a way to map out our world. Many people argue that children have no memories before the age of three, and indeed it is very hard to remember things before the age of three, but I believe this is merely because children learn in imagery and before three, do not have the language to create the memories as we think of them as adults. Many adults assume that they cannot visualise. Whilst it is certainly true that visualisation may not be your dominant modality, it is impossible for you not to be able to visualise. A good example would be to think about what your kitchen looks like. Everyone can do that. By thinking about your

kitchen, you are visualising it. Also, nearly everyone spends time daydreaming, when their mind wanders off and imagines some other place or set of events (some argue daydreaming is a state of hypnosis). In fact, traders use visualisation all the time when they think of what a trade might do. You might ‘see’ the charts going in your favour, or you might start planning your next strategic trade. You make predictions and these all form part of your mental imagery. Visualisation is used in psychotherapy because it is very effective at teaching the brain and teaching the self what you want. It aids the speed with which you can create change. You will have noticed that the majority of techniques in the previous section asked you to picture certain things, such as balloons, boxes and beaches. Some images are of practical use and some are symbolic, but all help to focus your mind to create the changes that you want or need.

2. Guided visualisation The activities in this chapter will take you through guided visualisation (or guided imagery) techniques to help create a success mindset – working towards what you want to achieve in trading and in life. It is often suggested by therapists that humans spend a lot of time inadvertently imagining what we do not want in life, so we are very much programmed to expect the worst-case scenarios. Theoretically, this comes from our huntergatherer days when we had to think about the threats in our environment, such as being eaten by other animals. From my perspective as a hypnotherapist, I believe there is merit in being aware of problems within the environment that may cause you a challenge, but I also believe that if you continuously focus on the negative, your subconscious will work towards making that your reality. For example, people who believe they are unlucky miss opportunities to be lucky and those who believe they are lucky always seem to find luck somewhere. Therefore, you need to work on creating the future reality that you want. Instead of starting your trading day with thoughts and images of possible losses like the day before, or no decent trades, or profits that are

too small, you should be thinking about what you want to achieve and the success that will be yours. Guided imagery is a psychotherapeutic technique that can be used both in and out of hypnosis. The use of hypnosis will help you access the subconscious and accept these images more readily. Some of the many benefits of guided imagery include: Helping you to relax and let go of stress, e.g. by thinking about a beach holiday you have been on. Choosing new outcomes which can help you deal with future situations better. This helps you to feel more prepared and aware of your options. Offering you a new perspective, e.g. in reframing tasks you change the image from being about you to being about the event. Increasing your confidence, self-esteem and positive mental attitude. Changing your mood, e.g. moving from sad thoughts to happy thoughts. These benefits combine to create positive changes that you can see almost instantly. Guided visualisation can be used to work on almost any challenge you face as a trader. By the end of Part Three, you will be able to apply this knowledge to dealing with stress, fear, negative self-talk and how you react to losing trades. In fact, those issues may dissolve anyway as a side-effect of the work you do here. Visualisation techniques will appear throughout the rest of this book but you will now go on to learn how to use two guided imagery activities to build your success mindset so that you can work towards what you want to achieve.

3. Successful trades This guided imagery is aimed at helping you picture winning trades and picture winning the trades you are in. There are two ways you could use this. Firstly, you can spend time outside of trading using this guided

imagery to visualise winning your trades, and secondly, you can use it during your trading day to imagine success and excellent decision-making during the trades you are taking. Successful trades Step 1: Guide yourself into hypnosis (for best results). Step 2: Visualise, in any way that you can, having good, winning trades. Spend time thinking about the amount of money you’d like to have earned (start off very realistic, then in later visualisations work on the targets you want to be aiming for). Step 3: Add detail, e.g. picture yourself where you usually trade, and seeing the charts on the screen. Think about how it feels to have that successful trade. Can you hear anything (e.g. other people around you, the whirring noise of a computer, etc.)? Make it as bold, vivid and real as you can. Step 4: Enjoy it, notice how good you feel, how much you are enjoying the vision of those winning trades. Perhaps focus on one in particular or how the feelings build up as you continue to make a profit in more and more trades. Step 5: When you’ve spent as long as you need and are feeling really positive, guide yourself out of hypnosis and open your eyes.

That technique leaves you with such a good feeling through the excitement and the positivity. You may even notice you feel more focused or more motivated as an added bonus.

4. Vision of the future This next guided imagery technique is all about the goal. Perhaps you want to be extremely rich, perhaps you want to earn several thousand a month to have a comfortable lifestyle, or perhaps you just need an extra few hundred pounds a week to top up your pension, etc. It is not for me to say whether your end goal is realistic or achievable. However, I recommend you build up this visualisation activity and split it into several goals, e.g. doing x consistently, or earning y before you earn z, etc. That way you are creating an achievable image. Whether you take baby steps or huge leaps in your trading is irrelevant. This exercise is best done using hypnosis.

Vision of the future Step 1: Guide yourself into hypnosis. Step 2: Once in your special place, imagine you are sitting in front of a mirror that shows your future. Is it a circular mirror or square? Does it have a frame? Really add the detail. Step 3: Look into the mirror and realise you can see yourself in the future. The successful you. Perhaps you are retired and have an excellent lifestyle. Where are you? Who is with you? What does your bank balance say? This is your future with trading success. Perhaps you aren’t retired but a renowned trader. Someone with a huge portfolio. Perhaps you are teaching others how to trade. Step 4: Build the images clearly in your mind. Realise you can make it like a film so you can hear yourself, hear other people, hear what’s going on around you. You might be cruising around on a yacht, bought from the profits of your success. Perhaps something else entirely. Step 5: Think about how you look and feel. Exhilarated? Happy? Relaxed? Busy? Motivated? How do you want to feel? Step 6: Hold that image in your mind and know that this is your future and what you are working towards. Enjoy it for as long as you’d like. Step 7: When ready, guide yourself out of hypnosis.

This exercise is all about setting up that future of success. If you struggle to imagine that success, then it’s probably due to low self-confidence and selfesteem, or because you are not setting the right goals for you. Go back to the plan laid out earlier in the book and rewrite this, or break it down further into six months, a year, two years, and five years for your achievements. Then plan your visualisation around those goals.

Summary Visualisation is such a powerful tool and, although it may take you some practice, you’ll find that after a while you naturally start to think about what you want to achieve rather than thinking about what you don’t want. If you find yourself stuck in a negative mindset, for whatever reason, reframe and re-visualise.

CHAPTER NINE. Affirmations

A

n affirmation is a statement of truth or a statement of something we want to be true that fosters empowerment and positive mental attitude. This chapter focuses on how to create and use affirmations. It builds on elements related to affirmations that have already featured in previous chapters, including example affirmations that I have provided. We cover: 1. Why affirmations are important 2. How to write affirmations 3. Activity: write your own affirmations 4. Examples of affirmations 5. How to use affirmations

1. Why affirmations are important Trading is a complex task that is psychologically brutal at times. The outcome of your trading, if negative, can threaten your sense of selfintegrity, cause stress and increase levels of self-protection, which in turn can hamper your success as a trader. Affirmations can improve the outcome in various aspects of our lives and these positive changes are long lasting. This is something I have witnessed with clients throughout my career as a hypnotherapist. Clients who use affirmations become more positive and happier, and create change for themselves. I use affirmations myself in everyday life. I used them when pregnant in anticipation of childbirth and I use them in my work life too. You can use them to help with a variety of trading elements, including: Growing and maintaining focus Increasing your discipline

Becoming less fearful and more confident Welcoming money and abundance into your life Developing new levels of calm Although the focus of this chapter is on affirmations for trading, remember that your personal life influences how you trade and you can apply what you learn here to your life outside of trading. For example, if you want to stop snacking you could use, “I am fuller for longer.” Or if you have a problem with the boiler and it is causing you stress then you could use, “I am calm and level headed whilst resolving the boiler problem.” You can apply affirmations to every part of your life.

2. How to write affirmations There is a science to writing good quality and effective affirmations. Done hastily and without thought, they will be ineffective or inappropriate for you. Below, I have outlined a few rules for you to follow: 1. Make them realistic (e.g. “I welcome financial abundance” rather than “I am a millionaire”). Although being a millionaire may be your end goal, if there is a big jump to that point, start by writing affirmations on being financially better off. You can amend your affirmations as you go. 2. Keep them in the present tense, e.g. “I am” and “I do”, not the future or past tense, e.g. “I was” or “I will”. This is because you are programming your brain to focus on what you want it to be now, not in the future. If you say “I will be a successful trader,” your subconscious ignores it because it’s in the future and not something it needs to pay attention to. 3. Avoid “I want” or “I need”. These statements are affirming your wants and needs, not what you have or what you are. For example, use “I am happy” rather than “I need to be happy”. 4. Write your affirmations in a positive way and avoid statements that are negative. Again, you are aiming to programme your mind towards achieving success and by avoiding the negative you are

avoiding your subconscious thinking about the negative. So avoid statements such as “I am not in debt” and rephrase to something like “I am financially stable” or “I am wealthy and prosperous”. 5. Use your own language and turn of phrase. If you would never use the word “prosperous”, swap it to a word you would use, such as “successful”. Your affirmations are for you and if you use language that isn’t ‘you’, then your subconscious might not pay attention. 6. Keep them short and simple. You will forget overly complicated affirmations and so you are less likely to use them. Follow these rules and you will write fantastic affirmations that you can use to aid your success as a trader and in life. Write your own affirmations Have a go at it now! Write down five affirmations on a piece of paper and then review them against the six points above. You can pick areas relevant to your trading specifically, perhaps a problem area you identified previously in the book, or more general trading affirmations. Was it easy? If not, keep practising! You’ll become more familiar and comfortable with writing and using your own affirmations.

3. Examples of affirmations You may have found the activity above very easy or you may have struggled and need a little help. Here are some examples of affirmations that you can use as a trader: I trade with confidence and success I am a fearless trader I am worthy of abundance across all areas of my life I learn quickly and easily adapt to market changes I control my emotions when trading I take necessary risks and accept the rewards I understand that losing trades is an inevitable part of trading I welcome the opportunity to learn and develop as a trader

I am a full-time trader I trade with knowledge and confidence I remain calm and in control whilst trading I make x profit on a daily basis I have achieved success I read the charts and clearly see patterns and trends I make excellent trading decisions

4. How to use affirmations You know what an affirmation is, you know how to write them and you have a set of examples that you can use or alter as you see fit. Now you need to know how to use your affirmations for the greatest impact. There is no great secret to this but it is very important that you build in the time to use your affirmations. You could set aside five minutes every day and pick some affirmations to say to yourself over and over again. It makes little difference if you speak them out loud or repeat them in your mind. Make it part of your routine, so you could do it straight after you’ve cleaned your teeth in the morning, for example, or you could build it into your trading day. Perhaps spend time before you start reading the charts for the day. Using your affirmations before you start to trade on any given day will be more effective than doing them after you have been trading. This is because it helps build your positive mindset and your success mindset. Very often, I record affirmation audio tracks for clients so that they can listen to them at a time suitable for them. You can even listen to them at night whilst asleep. When you are asleep, you are deeply relaxed and able to readily absorb the information. To increase the success of your affirmations you can combine them with self-hypnosis so you work directly with your subconscious. You can also strengthen them further by combining with positive visualisation. By experimenting with the techniques you will find the combination that works most effectively for you. As a final important note, if you speak an affirmation and then hear your inner voice using negative self-talk, use the exercises in this book to combat

that negative self-talk and work on your confidence and self-esteem, or any other areas that need work (e.g. if you still feel fearful). Keep using the affirmations at the same time as the other techniques to build up your positive success mindset.

Summary Affirmations are highly effective when combined with visualisation and self-hypnosis and when used on a regular basis. You can create your own truth and work towards your goals. This is all part of your self-development and building the best trading mindset that you can.

CHAPTER TEN. Modelling

M

Success

odelling is a popular NLP technique that can help you build a mindset and behaviour set for success. In this chapter we cover:

1. What is modelling? 2. The process of modelling: Information gathering Filtering and creation Application and testing

1. What is modelling? NLP uses modelling as the study of excellence. It is the art of studying someone else’s success and how they achieve that success. It is not merely about copying what a successful person does, but learning and understanding the strategies behind it. Theoretically, we can model human actions, behaviours and thought processes that underlie a skill or talent. The challenging aspect is that much of what successful people do is at a subconscious level. If you were to interview successful traders you would get some answers but some questions are unanswerable. For example, gut feeling: what is it? How do you develop a gut feeling for something? This chapter will teach you how to model successful traders to the best of your ability. You will learn to develop the behaviours of others, refine existing behaviours and gain new knowledge and skills. Most of our behaviours are created from habit; from cognitive shortcuts to beliefs instilled within us as children. You will learn to change your thoughts, feelings and behaviours as well as adding some new ones. These new behaviours, in turn, will become as systematic and habitual as the old ones.

2. The process of modelling The process of modelling others can be broken down into several steps over a number of phases. This is very much a self-development project and so, as you work through the rest of this chapter, make sure you write down your thoughts and ideas. In order to understand how to model others and to integrate the important elements of modelling, I have broken it down into three common phases. These three phases form the basis of the rest of the chapter. Each phase is important and I recommend that you take time to work through each section.

Information gathering This first phase is all about establishing the behaviours that you want to model and who you believe exhibits those behaviours now. Information gathering for modelling Step 1: Choose the skill, behaviour or state that you want to model. Examples might include: being able to identify your own trade indicators, keeping calm whilst trading, controlling your emotions, coping better with losing trades, etc. Step 2: Choose at least three people that you consider to be experts in your chosen skill. Ideally, at least one of these people should be someone you can meet and talk to in person. Step 3: Meet with those traders (note: they don’t have to be a trader, it could be someone who is driven and motivated in their career, if drive and motivation is what you want) and talk to them, observe them, and ask them about their behaviours and skills. Are these skills trading specific or does that person transfer that skill elsewhere? For those that you cannot speak to, read articles they have written, observe them when possible, and research the elements that you want to model. Ask lots of investigative questions: What are their routines? Do they use any self-help techniques? How do they achieve their results? Do they trade only at certain times of day? How do they manage risk? Do they have coping mechanisms? What makes them different to someone less successful? What do they trade?

What are their preferred methods? Really spend time drilling down into as much detail as you can. It will be to your benefit.

Filtering and creation This second phase is all about filtering the information you have gathered and creating something that you can test and refine. Filtering and creation Step one: Start by comparing your three ‘models’ to see which personality features, behaviours and skills overlap and seem relevant to this person’s success. Notice any patterns you see (e.g. they all switch off their computers when they finish trading for the day, they all use affirmations, they are very positive people, etc.). Note differences as well as similarities. One method would be to create a table for your results, such as the following. Trait, feature or skill

Person 1

Person 2

Person 3

Separate trading environment and home environment

Yes

Yes

No

Very confident

Yes

Yes

Yes

Has one method only

No

No

Yes

Does not check charts once trade has started

Yes

Yes

Yes

Once you have completed the table you can start to work out which elements you want to use or where you need to drill down further. You should think about which of the elements is important to you and which are less important. Step two: Now you have a range of behaviours, traits, observations, etc., you can start to organise these elements into a coherent structure or model. Write your draft model down so it is ready to use. How you create your model is up to you. You may just jot down a few notes on a piece of paper, or you may want to create something more structured – the latter may help you when you reach the application and testing phase. An example is shown in the following table. Pesonality traits

Behavioural methods

Technical elements

Confident

Walks away after placing a trade – actively goes to get a warm drink

Trades at X times of day

Strong

Hypnosis prior to starting a trade

Uses Y type of

willed

method

Friendly

Exercises every day

Thoughtful

Wears a hat when trading

Has XYZ rules

Once you have all the important parts written down you can also look at how you could implement them yourself or become more alike in your behaviours and attitudes.

Application and testing The final part of the modelling process is to start testing the model you have created. Review it, change it and test it until you have a model that suits you. Application and testing Step 1: Start testing the model you have created. Introduce those new behaviours, stop old ones, and use the model in different scenarios, if required. Make a note of the results and the changes you have experienced. Step 2: Review your success. Notice what has worked for you and what hasn’t. Remember that change takes time so you need to review this over several weeks, but there is no set timescale on this task. Remove any elements that are making little or no difference to you. Step 3: Practise these new skills and behaviours – this will instil these new elements and they will become a natural, normal, habitual part of you. Step 4: Determine how you will continue measuring the results of using this model and use the model to develop those skills in more depth.

You could spend a lot of time researching more levels within the modelling framework of NLP, but keep it simple. Focus on those who achieve what you want to achieve and how they do it. Remember, success rarely happens overnight so keep reviewing and remodelling.

CHAPTER ELEVEN. Boosting

Confidence and Motivation

T

his chapter focuses on building your confidence and self-esteem and, in turn, increasing your motivation for success. Confidence and self-esteem are important to everyone and they often get mistaken for the same thing. Self-esteem is about our internal belief system: what you think about yourself, your abilities and your future. It is very much linked to your feelings of self-worth. Confidence, on the other hand, is about actions and our ability to do something. For example, you may be very good at talking in public (confidence), but you may spend time beating yourself up for everything you consider to have done wrong and may not feel good enough (self-esteem). Whilst there is a correlation between the two, they are independent. The topics and activities in this chapter are: 1. Confidence and motivation 2. Activity: understanding your confidence and self-belief levels 3. Technique: reflective mirroring 4. Technique: growing the confident you 5. Havening for increased self-esteem 6. Technique: the confident trader 7. Technique: confidence balls 8. Technique: motivational control room 9. Motivational affirmations 10. Technique: visualising profitable trades 11. Using memories

1. Confidence and motivation Confidence and self-esteem are very important for traders and how they perform. It is very common for traders to have an attitude that they know how to trade and are confident in their technical abilities, yet they are of low self-esteem and don’t believe in themselves, or don’t believe they deserve success. This links to fear and anxiety, because low self-esteem can cause all sorts of challenges, one being self-sabotage. As human beings, we manipulate our worlds to reflect what we believe our worlds to be. So if we believe we are unworthy of something, at a subconscious level we work to prove that to be the case. I have a great belief that what we send out into the world is what we get back. By building on your confidence you can start to make positive changes in your life. Confidence is often linked with motivation. Motivation is what gets you started and keeps you going in any element of life. Often, bad habits and poor confidence destroy motivation by keeping us trapped in unhelpful patterns and cycles. This chapter will explore your levels of confidence and self-esteem, outline techniques to improve them and address building, maintaining and boosting your motivation for success as a trader. Although we are specifically addressing trading here, the techniques are applicable to all areas of your life.

2. Understanding your confidence and self-belief levels Building your confidence and your self-belief will help you to become a better trader. You will make decisions based on fact and be influenced less by that little voice in your head saying negative things. Combine the following activities with the chapter on negative self-talk and you will only achieve a positive outcome. I am sure you will already be aware of how high or low your confidence and self-esteem is. Let’s examine it further in the following activity.

Understanding your confidence and self-belief levels Pick five people from across your life (e.g. boss, partner, best friend, mum, etc.) and write down what you think they think of you. Also write down what you think you bring to that person (e.g. reliable employee, romantic partner, someone to laugh with). Also make note of things you feel confident doing (e.g. trading, a sport, talking to new people), and things you feel less confident in. With the latter, also note what would make you more confident in those areas. This activity will get you to identify your beliefs and what you need to work on in terms of your confidence and self-esteem. *** The rest of the chapter outlines techniques that you can use to build your confidence and self-esteem. Work through them one at a time and watch your confidence and self-esteem grow and see how that changes your trading. You will also notice other areas of your life improve as a result of your higher levels of self-belief and self-worth.

3. Reflective mirroring This technique is about accepting the positive opinions that people have of you and integrating them with the self. It’s a very simple exercise that you can use with hypnosis to strengthen the effect, but it can also be used on its own. Reflective mirroring Step 1: Guide yourself into hypnosis if you want to. If not, find somewhere quiet to sit where you won’t be disturbed and just close your eyes. Step 2: Imagine your best friend or partner is standing in front of you. You can clearly see them, what they are wearing and how they smile at you. Step 3: When you are ready, imagine stepping out of yourself and into the other person opposite so you find that you are looking back at yourself through the other person’s eyes. See yourself how they see you. Notice the things they love about you,

how much fun you are and how much they enjoy spending time with you. All those good qualities. Feel how happy they are when they are looking at you. Step 4: Gather all those thoughts and feelings up and hold onto them and then step back into yourself, taking all those positive elements with you. Step 5: Spend time enjoying those feelings, revelling in them, appreciating them and knowing them to be real. Step 6: When you are ready, guide yourself out of hypnosis and open your eyes.

Notice how great you feel now and how positive you feel about yourself. It’s so easy and quick and gives you such a boost.

4. Growing the confident you This technique follows on from the previous technique and is a powerful way of using visualisation and NLP to create your future and your current reality. Growing the confident you Step 1: Find a room with two chairs, or place two cushions on the floor. Step 2: Sit on one of these chairs or cushions and face the other. Close your eyes and, in the chair opposite you, I want you to imagine a more confident you, a more self-assured you. Step 3: As you look at the more confident you, imagine and notice how you look, what you are wearing, how you are sitting – perhaps you are more upright, dressed smarter or have a different haircut. Perhaps your facial expression is different, perhaps it’s just a sense of confidence that you can pick up. Step 4: When you have all that clear in your mind, stand up and go and sit in the seat of the more confident you, close your eyes and imagine that you are now the more confident you. Take a deep breath, change how you are sitting, and reflect that image you were looking at earlier. Notice how great you feel. Step 5: When you are ready, when you are feeling good, open your eyes.

Now that you have begun to develop your confidence, accepting how other people see you in such a positive way and how you now see yourself as a confident person, you can now move towards increasing your self-esteem.

5. Havening for increased self-esteem

You were introduced to Havening earlier as a method for rectifying negative emotions and reducing the effect of negative events on the self. This section introduces you to Havening combined with positive affirmation to improve your self-esteem. Read through the full section before you start because it is different to the Havening technique outlined earlier. Pick some of your positive affirmations you wrote down earlier, or write some new affirmations based on increasing your self-esteem or confidence, e.g. “I am a kind and thoughtful person”, “I feel really good about myself” or “I really like myself”. Perhaps stick to three or four affirmations so you remember them easily. Havening for increased self-esteem Step 1: Think about your levels of self-esteem. They might be quite high or they might be low. Think about how you feel about yourself. Step 2: Start Havening by stroking your arms from shoulder to elbow. Keep repeating this motion, stroking downwards. Step 3: As you continue Havening, start thinking through or saying aloud the affirmations you have chosen for the session. Give yourself time to Haven between affirmations. Quiet time is good too, and allows the affirmation to be linked with the stimulation of the increased serotonin levels being released during Havening. Step 4: In silence now, Haven for a few more minutes then take a nice deep breath and come to a finish.

Havening is a brilliant way to reduce and remove negative emotions and it is also an excellent technique to encourage self-esteem and positive thinking. Another way to use it would be to use your trading specific affirmations, e.g. “I trade with knowledge and consistency.”

6. The confident trader It is important to grow your confidence and self-esteem across your whole self and not just for trading. However, you also need to develop that focus on confidence whilst trading so that you can bring about better decisionmaking, reactions and results. This aim of the next technique is to build

your confidence as a trader and in turn it will increase your motivation for success. The confident trader Step 1: Guide yourself into hypnosis and into your own special room. Step 2: In your own special room you’ll notice a door marked ‘living room’. Walk over to the door and go through it. See yourself inside a comfortable living room. Picture those big comfy sofas, perhaps a massive television or soft lighting; whatever makes this a relaxing environment for you. Step 3: Go over to the DVD player and pop in the disc you can see on the floor next to it, grab the remote and make yourself at home on the sofa. Step 4: This is a DVD of the future you with your success as a trader. Press play and you’ll see yourself appear on the screen. You are talking to the camera about your success as a trader. Listen to what you are saying about your trading success. Perhaps you are talking about being consistent, or using a strong methodology. What about all the things this future version of you has achieved as a result of trading success? Perhaps you’ve travelled the world, paid off your mortgage, or taught other traders. Step 5: As you continue to watch your movie, notice that every so often, the future you plays a video clip of your past successes from across your whole life. Perhaps learning to swim or ride a bike, getting a promotion, etc. Enjoy this film of both your past and future successes. Step 6: Imagine yourself floating out of your body and into the television screen and into the future you. See what they see, feel what they feel, hear what they hear. Experience those feelings of success as a trader, notice how it feels to be great at trading, to have that self-assurance with your decision-making, to trade without fear or anxiety. Step 7: As you think about that feeling of success, think about where you notice it in your body. Give that feeling a colour. Now let that colour spread outwards from where you feel success in your body so it fills your whole body from head to toe. Imagine being totally absorbed in this colour of success, this feeling of success. Step 8: Now float back out of the television screen and back into yourself sitting on the sofa and notice you are still filled with that colour and those feelings. Enjoy it. Step 9: Taking a deep breath and gently guide yourself out of hypnosis, bringing those feelings of success with you.

7. Confidence balls Some of the techniques take a little time, so this next technique is designed to provide you with a quick boost to your confidence for times when you need it whilst trading.

Perhaps you find yourself in a situation where you are in the middle of a trade and need the confidence to stay in longer to see if a losing trade turns around, or perhaps you want the confidence to finish a trade with a good profit rather than feeling the need to keep holding on. Alternatively, you can use this technique as a quick motivation boost, for example, if you have stopped trading and need to get back into it, or you have lost a trade and feel demotivated by it. Confidence balls Step 1: Close your eyes. Think about the colour you chose in the last task that represents confidence and success. Think about a time you felt confident in the past (it may be unrelated to trading). Step 2: As you think about that moment of confidence, make it vivid and bold in your body. Imagine that colour and allow that motivation feeling to travel into your arms and down into your hands so you are holding a ball of colour in your hands, a ball of confidence. Step 3: Hold your hands out in front of you now as if you were holding the balls in each hand, palms facing up. Pull your hands up towards your shoulders and when you are ready, flick out your hands, away from yourself, as if you were throwing those coloured balls of confidence out into the world. As you flick your hands out, notice that feeling of confidence filling your whole body. Step 4: Keep practising and eventually you will only need to do step three to bring on those feelings of confidence. You are anchoring the feeling of confidence to the action of flicking your hands out.

TIP! If you want to use the ‘Confidence balls’ technique for motivation, use this activity but replace the confidence memory with a time you felt motivated and pick a colour that represents motivation for you.

8. Motivational control room This multi-purpose technique helps change your mindset and will instantly increase your motivation for success. Before starting this technique, spend some time writing down what sort of motivation you want and need. For example, you may need motivation to review lost trades, or perhaps to go back to basics on

examining charts, or to write a proper trading plan. You may even want to improve your motivation to increase your profits on your trades. Motivational control room Step 1: Guide yourself into a relaxed state of hypnosis and settle in your special room. Step 2: Imagine getting up from your seat and walking down the corridors of your mind. Eventually, you’ll come to a door marked ‘control room’. This is the control room of your mind. Step 3: Walk inside your control room and close the door. Take a moment to familiarise yourself. Some control rooms look like a mass of computers, others look like a ship’s engine room, or perhaps yours appears like a library. Take note of the colours, how the room smells and any sounds you can hear. Step 4: Look around for the part of your control room that manages your motivation, e.g. for reviewing lost trades. Is it a switch that needs to be turned on, or a dial that needs to be turned up? Or something else? Make the changes you need to that control. Step 5: Move on to the next motivational element you want to improve, e.g. writing a trading plan. Once again, notice if this is a dial, knob or switch and make that change. Repeat this process in all the areas you’d like to increase your motivation. Step 6: Find the part of your control room that manages your overall motivation levels. This will most likely be a dial or knob rather than a switch. I want you to crank it right up to the highest level of motivation possible. Step 7: When you have finished, leave your control room and lock the door behind you. Walk back down the corridor until you are sitting in your own special room again and revel in how motivated you feel. Step 8: Guide yourself out of hypnosis and make the most of your increased motivation.

This technique can be used as often as you need for a top up. You can also go into your control room to make changes to anything you like, e.g. to increase confidence, reduce anxiety, increase focus, etc.

9. Motivational affirmations Motivational affirmations are useful because they have a double effect: firstly, they help you work towards programming your mind to a motivated mindset and, secondly, they are introducing you to the immediate feeling of

being motivated. It is amazing how quickly you can start to feel and behave in a motivated manner just by talking about it. Write down five affirmations to help you become more motivated. They do not need to be complicated. They can be as straightforward as “I am a motivated person,” or they can be more specific, such as “I find it easy to stay motivated to monitor my trades,” or “I enjoy reviewing all results and am driven to achieve the best I can do.” Spend time practising these affirmations and ensure they evolve with your success.

10. Visualising profitable trades Building up your ability to visualise success is crucial in helping you towards your goals. An important step for any trader is to be able to visualise winning trades. You will hopefully be able to draw on your own experiences of how great you felt. If not, now is the time to create your own reality. Visualising profitable trades Step 1: Close your eyes. Step 2: Picture yourself trading. Build up the picture in your mind. Where do you normally sit? How many screens do you have? What type of trade is it? Can you smell anything, e.g. coffee or the leather of a chair? Step 3: Build up the next layer by focusing on the trade, watching the charts. Notice how you are beginning to feel and what you are thinking as you see your profit levels rising and how you make the decision to exit the trade. Perhaps you are confident in your abilities to make decisions, perhaps you are in a heightened state of awareness when monitoring what is happening. Step 4: As you exit the trade with a profit, notice how that feels. Notice how positive, motivated and calm you feel, safe in the knowledge it is what you expect. Perhaps you tailor the image to a specific value of profit or perhaps it’s just another in a long line of winning trades. Step 5: Make it as real and as vivid as you can. Notice how you look, as well as how you feel. Enjoy the image for a few minutes and then open your eyes. Step 6: Now you have created that vivid mental image of yourself creating regular profit on the trades that you make, take it one step further and now repeat this in hypnosis. This will really strengthen the effect and programme your mind towards helping you make more profitable trades.

You can use this simple visualisation to help you achieve your goals. It builds a profit-based mindset and helps build your confidence. You can use it to target specific profit goals. For example, if you want to gradually increase the value you place on each pip or the number of pips of profit you target per trade then you can tailor this task accordingly.

11. Using memories Have you ever noticed that a certain piece of music evokes certain memories, good or bad? Or how a certain smell makes you feel? Or perhaps you have noticed that if you think about a nice cream cake, for example, it makes you salivate? For every thought we have, there is a chemical reaction within our brain and our body reacts accordingly. If you want to boost your confidence or your motivation instantly you merely have to recall a time when you experienced those emotions. They do not have to be memories related to trading. It could be such things as passing exams, meeting someone you love or making an important speech. Whenever you recall a time when you have felt motivated and/or confident you will experience that rush of emotion and you can work with that to a positive effect. Remember that emotions are not something to be ignored and overpowered. They are there to give you messages about your environment and therefore they should be controlled and utilised to your advantage. Write down three memories or experiences when you have felt really confident and really good about yourself and your abilities. Write down another three memories or experiences when you have felt extremely motivated. As you recall those times, note down how you feel or what you think now.

Summary This chapter has covered a wide variety of techniques and practical examples for using affirmations and visualisations to help you develop your confidence and motivation as a person and as a trader. It’s easy to get stuck and not recognise that our confidence has been dented or that we don’t feel

as motivated as we did previously. Being unmotivated or lacking confidence can seriously affect your trading performance. You might notice it in your self-talk, or in your behaviours, e.g. not feeling bothered to review lost trades, etc. Why not spend some time reflecting on yourself to see whether you could be affected by this? Stress and anxiety can also contribute to lack of confidence and lack of motivation. You can combine all of these techniques with those outlined in other chapters in this book. For example, if you experience a losing trade and you think it’s knocked your confidence then you can combine activities from Chapter Four and Chapter Ten to get your mindset back on track. TIP! Redo the written activity you completed at the start of this chapter and reflect on how that has changed. Also think about other changes you have noticed that may be unrelated to the items you wrote down.

CHAPTER TWELVE. Mental

Preparation and Discipline

O

ne of the biggest issues my trading clients present with is a lack of discipline. A lack of discipline can allow emotions to get in the way, poor decision-making and large losses. Discipline allows you to exert a level of control over the trading environment. It places you in a superior position for decision-making and helps you to yield better and more profitable trades. In this chapter we will cover: 1. Discipline – or lack thereof 2. Technique: clearing your mind 3. Technique: cognitive capacity monitor 4. Body language 5. Technique: power of discipline

1. Discipline – or lack thereof Discipline is often perceived as being interchangeable with motivation. Yet many traders report feeling motivated but acting without discipline. There are many reasons for this, such as a lack of goals, not planning appropriately, or being greedy and wanting to make a quick buck. This chapter covers a number of techniques that will increase your discipline levels and also looks at the importance of mental preparation. This is because mental preparation supports high levels of discipline. It is important to consider that discipline, or lack thereof, isn’t necessarily about being lazy. Personality, trading style, fear, anxiety and confidence can all contribute to how disciplined you are. For example, if you are struggling to follow a plan because fear is influencing you, you are letting fear have

power over discipline. This is why I am covering discipline and mental preparation at the end of the book. You will get optimal results if you use the following techniques to build on the changes you have already created. As a rule, the majority of traders will start their trading day by examining charts, noting the news and whether there is anything that could affect the market, and considering the types of trade they might like to take. Yet very few take the time to mentally prepare for their trading day. Mental preparation is really important because it sets you up in a positive, success mindset where you can maintain focus, remove distraction and perform better. So how do you do it?

2. Clearing your mind The first step to take is to declutter your mind of all the external elements that might influence how you trade. No one likes it when people bring their personal life to work: it is obvious that it will affect your performance. It is important to be able to ‘park the problem’ and learn to focus purely on trading and trading well. TIP! Just 10-15 minutes of self-hypnosis can be as refreshing as a whole night’s sleep. So if you are tired or you just want to quieten your mind for a bit, use self-hypnosis on its own. Use the following technique for a quick sweep up of anything that might affect your trading. Clearing your mind Step 1: Guide yourself into hypnosis and your own special room. Step 2: Once in your special room, visualise a bag or a bin in the corner. Walk over to it and start throwing anything in it that you believe might negatively influence how you trade that day, e.g. an argument with a spouse, money concerns, remembering to pick up the dry cleaning, thinking about what time you need to catch the bus, whether you switched off your phone, etc. Step 3: Put a lid on the bin or do up the bag. Then walk away from it knowing your mind is clear and return to that comfortable chair you were in. Step 4: End the hypnosis session knowing you are clear minded.

This technique is so quick and effective at pushing distractions to one side to allow you to focus on trading. Combine it with some success affirmations or motivation affirmations afterwards and you’ll be in a positive state of mind to trade. This technique isn’t about resolving or letting go of particular problems, it is just about placing them to the side to think about later. If there is something that is really bothering you and you need something more powerful in order to put it to the side or forget about it, then I recommend you use one of the earlier techniques aimed at letting go.

3. Cognitive capacity monitor Sometimes our discipline levels or ability to ‘get into the zone’ to trade can be influenced by a low cognitive capacity. In other words, feeling you are mentally drained and exhausted. Perhaps you have another job that you do that has kept you very busy, or perhaps you have spent all week trading and by the end of the week you feel tired, as if you can’t think straight. This technique is targeted towards giving you a mental refresh and topping up your cognitive capacity to process information, thus allowing you to make good decisions. Cognitive capacity monitor Step 1: Guide yourself into hypnosis and into your own special room. Step 2: Imagine your body is filled with a giant thermometer from your head down to your feet. This thermometer does not measure temperature: it measures your cognitive capacity. When it is full, you have full use of your mental capabilities, you are on top form and you feel great. When you have brain fog, are tired or just can’t process information as easily your levels are low. Step 3: Give the liquid in your thermometer a colour. Perhaps a vivid, bright colour that energises you. Note your current levels on the cognitive capacity monitor. To top them up, notice that underneath your cognitive capacity monitor, by your feet, there is an orange pump, like a foot pump. Step 4: Take a deep breath and see yourself doing one foot pump and notice the level of your cognitive capacity rising. Take another deep breath and do another foot pump and see the levels rising again. Keep doing this until your cognitive capacity monitor is full or at a level you are happy with. Step 5: Clear your mind, perhaps imagine yourself floating. Take five nice deep breaths and notice how clear headed you feel, how energised you feel.

Step 6: End your hypnosis session.

4. Body language Our biggest form of non-verbal communication is body language, including facial expressions. Our body language reflects the truth behind our thoughts and feelings and can also give away lies and deceit. Excitingly, we can also use our body language to change what we are thinking or feeling. Years ago, I used to work in a call centre, selling gas and electricity. I remember distinctly being told to smile more when I was on the phone. This is because smiling helps lift your mood and therefore you sound more positive on the phone. It works. I use body language a lot in my therapy room to understand how my clients are feeling and whether they have information they want to tell me but are worried about discussing. I also use it on myself. When presenting, whether in person or on webinars, I always stand tall, put my shoulders back, relax and smile. It increases my confidence and I know it looks better than shoulders hunched and looking small. You can use body language to help enhance your mindset and discipline when trading. Think back to the modelling task and any notes you made on the posture, physical characteristics and body language of those you were modelling. Did you notice anything? Think about how you can alter your posture and use body language to get into the right mindset for trading. Write down your current posture and body language when trading. Are you huddled over your laptop, are your arms crossed? Do you rub your forehead when watching the trade? What do you think a successful trader looks like in terms of posture and body language? Do they have their shoulders back? Are they open and relaxed? Notice any differences. Body language Step 1: Stand in front of a mirror and alter how you are standing so that you look confident, calm and in control, or however you would like to look before you trade.

Step 2: Sit down where you normally do when you are trading, and bring with you that body language and posture to be in charge. Do you notice yourself feeling more focused or prepared?

I once worked with a trader who felt he lacked discipline. I introduced him to this concept and he spent every morning in front of the mirror checking that he looked like he was in the right mindset. He reported back that his attitude had begun to change because he felt more mentally prepared, rather than just technically prepared with charts and knowledge. This is a quickwin task and easy to implement on a daily basis.

5. Power for discipline Power for discipline is similar to role play. It’s about your ability to imagine what it feels like to be disciplined and reflect that within yourself. Power for discipline Step 1: Pick a person (either real or imaginary: it can be a cartoon character, a famous trader, someone you know, etc.) who you consider to be incredibly disciplined, whether that’s when trading or in another element of their life such as exercise. Think about what makes them disciplined, how you can tell that they are disciplined, and what characteristics you admire and would like for yourself. Step 2: Stand up and imagine there is a circle on the floor in front of you. Perhaps it’s like a hula hoop, or a block-filled circle of colour, whatever feels comfortable for you. This circle contains all the characteristics, all of the discipline levels, all of the good traits that you want from the person you chose in step one. They are in the circle. Step 3: Close your eyes and think about this circle in front of you on the floor, imagining all those elements in step two contained within it. When you are ready, take a step forward into the circle. Absorb all those characteristics, all of that discipline. Imagine you are that person. See what they see, look out of their eyes, notice that increased discipline. What is it like? Step 4: After a few moments, step outside the circle and open your eyes. What did you notice? Step 5: Repeat this activity several times from step two until you can evoke those feelings really easily. Step 6: Once you have mastered doing this standing up, you can now practise it sitting down. A good idea would be to invoke the circle around you where you sit when you trade. In this instance, you can either imagine the circle already

surrounding the chair or you can sit in the chair and imagine the circle appearing around you.

You can apply the power circle activity to any other trait you’d like, e.g. focus, determination, calmness, straight-talking, confidence, watching what you eat, etc. In the case of discipline, if you practise regularly, you’ll notice that it becomes very quick and easy to bring about those feelings of discipline that will enable you to trade well.

Summary Taking the time to mentally prepare to trade will help get you into a disciplined mindset. All sorts of life events and challenges can distract you from trading well. The techniques outlined in this chapter will help you to deal with those distractions until, eventually, you’ll realise you find it easy to switch off from the outside world when you come to trade. I can’t emphasise enough the importance of taking time to mentally prepare to trade and get into the right zone and mindset. It will automatically help reduce levels of fear and anxiety. The mental preparation will help you to feel more confident and know that you will trade to the best of your abilities.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN. Your

Future

W

e now move on from resolving the psychological issues that trading brings and look at the future. This chapter is about how you can work towards the future you desire and how to set goals. We will cover the following: 1. Goal setting 2. Activity: PACER planning 3. Technique: creative strategies 4. Technique: timelines

1. Goal setting It is easy to superficially set goals and monitor your success against these, but you need to consider more deeply how you get from where you are now (your present state) to where you want to be (your desired state). If you take the time to delve deeply into what you want to achieve and how you’ll do it, you give yourself the opportunity to make it achievable. You can reassess your progress as your needs change, and you can stay on track because you can see how well you have done and what you still need to achieve. One way I recommend you set yourself goals is using a PACER plan.

2. PACER plan The first step is to get a notepad and a pen. You can do this task several times until you have a goal and plan you are happy with. You can also use what you have written down as a way of comparing now and then, when you look back in the future. Use the acronym PACER to assess your goals, as follows: P: Positive – state what you want in the positive.

A: Achievement – how will you know you have achieved it? C: Context – when do you want it? E: Ecology – what will happen if you achieve it? If you achieve it, will you lose anything? R: Resources – can you initiate it, achieve it and maintain it? Once you have this basic framework, flesh it out by asking yourself more questions. Be sure to note down the answers to these as well. For example: What would stop you achieving it? What obstacles might you come across? How do you get past them? Are you creating any problems? What resources do you have and what additional resources will you need? How will you know you are on course? What are you measuring and how often are you measuring it? How will you feel? What will you experience? How will you know you have achieved your goal? This task is a great way for you to create a flexible plan and measure your performance. If you come across any unexpected obstacles you can use this as a framework to understand what impact they might have and what you can do to overcome them. This exercise may also help you realise that perhaps your initial goal is too big and you need smaller goals first. For example, your eventual goal may be to become a full-time trader, but before that perhaps you need a goal of making £X per month consistently over a period of X months. This level of planning will empower you to overcome hurdles and maintain a positive mindset. If you happen to go through a period of several losing trades, you can look back at what you have achieved so far, noting whether you are still on course to meet your goals. If necessary, you can use the techniques described earlier in the book to help you remain on track.

3. Creative strategy

This technique was originally used by Walt Disney when he created Snow White. The creative strategy is the next level up for your plan to help you assess what you can achieve. Creative strategy Step 1: Place three pieces of paper on the floor in different areas, labelled DREAMER, REALIST and CRITIC. Step 2: Stand on the dreamer spot and spend a moment remembering a time when you were really creative, carefree and uninhibited. Then step onto the realist spot and recall a time you were able to think realistically and put a plan into action. Then finally step onto the critic spot and think about a time when you offered positive, constructive criticism. This is helping you create a mindset for each spot. Remember the dreamer can only dream and does not plan or critique. The realist can only plan and the critic can only critique. Step 3: Stand in the middle and think about the goal you set in your PACER plan. Now step into the dreamer spot and close your eyes. Imagine the full sensory experience of having achieved that goal. Step 4: Holding onto that dream, step into the realist spot and think about how you will implement a plan to achieve that goal. Step 5: Now move that dream and plan into the critic spot and get some feedback on the plan you’ve made. Step 6: Take the constructive feedback and step back onto the realist spot. Add all these elements and contingencies to the plan. Step 7: Return to the critic to discuss and repeat the process if and when required, until you are happy with the end result.

Although you may feel a bit silly standing up and moving from spot to spot completing this activity, it is a good way of processing information and thinking aloud. You will feel happy with your goals and more sure about how to complete them.

4. Timelines The final activity in this chapter is about helping you to commit mentally and emotionally to your plan and understanding its role in your future success as a trader. It combines hypnosis, visualisation, NLP, affirmation and Havening to put you on the path to success.

Your timeline Step 1: Use self-hypnosis to guide yourself into your own special room. Spend a few minutes resting and relaxing, taking some nice, slow deep breaths. Step 2: Imagine you get up from that comfortable chair and go outside into the garden. You find yourself walking down a pathway in a field. It is a warm day, there is a gentle breeze and not a cloud in the sky. Eventually see yourself come to a fork in the road. You can go either left or right. Step 3: As you look down the left path, you realise it is the path to a future where you do not have a specific plan. As you look down the right-hand path, you will see it is the path to your future where you have followed the plan you have been creating. Step 4: Imagine you are now at the other end of the left-hand path. As you look back on your life, what has happened? Did you do well at trading with no plan? Did you have a good life? Did you need more money? Was it what you wanted your life to be like? Step 5: Now imagine that you are at the other end of the right-hand path, the pathway where you followed the plan you had created for yourself, the pathway where you achieved your goals. What was your life like? How did you feel? Was it exciting? How does it feel being successful? Step 6: Return to the fork in the road. It is decision time now. Do you want to go left, the route of no goals and no plan, or do you want to go right, where you achieve your goals by following your plan? Step 7: As you choose your path, start walking towards that future and use the following affirmation: “I am on the X path in my life and I am achieving X.” For example, “I am on the right path in my life and I am achieving success in trading.” Repeat this affirmation five times. Step 8: When your chosen path is clear in your mind, return to that place in your own special room and guide yourself out of hypnosis. Step 9: Keeping your eyes closed, start Havening your arms and whisper to yourself, “Success”. Do this for a few minutes before ending the session.

Congratulations! You are set to work hard to create the success that you want. Remember, it is all about taking one step at a time and always moving forward. Goals can always be amended and reviewed. You have the ability to be the best trader that you can be.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN. Finding

a

Suitable Hypnotherapist

S

ometimes we all need a little extra help and you may decide you would like to consult a hypnotherapist for some support. There are a variety of approaches in hypnotherapy and you will find solution focused brief hypnotherapists, cognitive behavioural hypnotherapists and analytical hypnotherapists. Which is best? Each will claim they offer the best solution and all hypnotherapists are solution focused. Personally, I use a combined approach so that I can offer the best therapy to my clients. Very importantly, look for a therapist who is trained in using analysis, otherwise called hypno-analysis or regression. Sometimes events from our past (not necessarily our childhood) can influence how we behave and how we feel in the present moment. Elements of self-sabotage can often be rooted in our past experiences even if we are completely unaware of it at a conscious level. A trained analyst can help you uncover those root causes and help you move forward without the past affecting you in any negative way. Some hypnotherapists do not agree this is necessary and so do not offer it as a service. However, I have witnessed first-hand on many occasions the power of analysis and the incredible changes my clients have experienced. Analysis isn’t always needed and your therapist will be able to discuss this with you. Whatever approach you go for, it is important that you find a hypnotherapist who is fully qualified. Look for membership with the following: Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC) – CNHC is the UK’s main governing body for complementary therapies and was set up with government support to protect the public by providing a

UK voluntary register of complementary therapists. The CNHC’s register has been approved as an Accredited Register by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care which means that any therapist you pick will have had exceptional levels of training and has to provide evidence of continuous learning and development every year. There are many hypnotherapy registers and associations. Those associations accredited by CNHC have demonstrated training and membership to a high level of competency. All hypnotherapists should have their memberships clearly displayed on their website. The National Council for Hypnotherapy (NCH) is one of the largest registers for hypnotherapists and is accredited by CNHC. The Association for Professional Hypnosis and Psychotherapy (APHP) is an official verification authority for CNHC and all hypnotherapy practitioners are guaranteed to have undergone thorough training with schools that comply with the National Occupational Standards for hypnotherapy. The reason I have separated out NCH and APHP from CNHC is because not every hypnotherapist who is an accredited member will have chosen to join CNHC. Ideally, find a hypnotherapist who has experience working with traders. We are very few and far between, but I know from my own experience and development that I have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours learning about trading psychology and how I can use hypnotherapy to best help traders create and achieve the changes they want. If you can’t find someone local to you with experience working with traders, go along and speak to a couple of hypnotherapists anyway. As long as they have good quality training and experience they will most likely be able to help you. Or you may find a therapist who offers sessions via Skype, enabling you to work with them even if they are not local to you. Consultations should always be available to you. Be mindful of a 20 or 30 minute consultation even if it’s free: the therapist may be unable to learn enough about you and the help that you want or need with trading in such a short time. Rapport is important for both therapist and client. Consider

seeing two or three hypnotherapists for consultations to see who you would like to work with. Not all consultations will be free and that is down to the individual therapist’s preference. By the end of your consultation you should feel comfortable with the therapist. You should have an understanding of the methods and techniques your therapist intends to use and how many sessions you might need. Hypnotherapy, or any other therapy for that matter, isn’t guaranteed to help you break down barriers in your life, but it has a high success rate. Provided you really want to make those changes and are prepared to change behaviours and emotions, there is every reason for it to be successful. You have also learned about Havening in this book. Havening is a standalone therapy and there is a database of registered practitioners on the Havening.org website. There are many therapists out there who have trained in Havening skills but who are not registered practitioners. You should still feel comfortable in consulting them as a lack of registration does not imply they are not highly trained.

HYPNOTRADING COURSES

A

s a final note, I’d like to take a moment to tell you about the HypnoTrading courses that are available online. There are several online courses available that offer you video, audio and worksheet support across a number of areas. I also run courses throughout the year where you will get the opportunity to work with me on common trading issues. The courses are designed to cover the topics and techniques raised in this book, whilst benefitting from being able to explore more detailed and personal elements of your trading. These courses run in small groups so that I can work with you individually, and you will benefit from a range of course materials and follow-up one-toone coaching sessions. If a course does not suit you, you could consider a consultation and working with me one-to-one, where I can address your specific needs as an individual as well as a trader. To register your interest and find out more information, visit HypnoTrading.co.uk and use the contact form to get in touch. I monitor the emails personally so you are guaranteed confidentiality and a personal response from me.