If there’s one thing I hate about trading, it’s that I’m constantly reminded how average and unspecial I am. As hard as I try to be ‘more’ than the average person, my normalness continues to flatten me.
As traders, we constantly have to battle our normalness because being the same, and thinking the same as the average Joe means we’re failing.
Here’s why.
Normal people like to be right. Traders can either be right, or win. Traders have to face being wrong – more than that, embrace being wrong, every day.
Normal people like to have certainty and security. Traders are exposed to uncertain outcomes in every decision they make, and have to constantly accept they have no idea what will happen. And follow the path, regardless.
Normal people act in response to their emotions. Traders have to observe their emotions, but act in response to their strategy.
Normal people love any kind of profit, and despise losing money. Traders recognise that losing money is acceptable – necessary, even - and that a profit realised through a lack of discipline can be worse than no profit at all.
Normal people can go through life blissfully ignorant of their inner workings. Traders must be intimately acquainted with the way they think.
I know this is only just scratching the surface – there are a multitude of ways that we, as traders, have to let go of the normal way of doing things.
The problem is, wriggling away from normal is hard. And for me, just when I think I’ve had a small victory and conquered my normalcy I do something that proves just how much I haven’t.
And that’s why we have to keep working on ourselves – because as traders we will never ‘make it’. There is always room for our normalcy to display itself, regardless of how successful we are – in fact, it’s when we start thinking we’re successful and ‘getting there’ that we are prone to proving just how normal we are.
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