New approach

The learning process is progressing well. I'm on my fifth and final book covering trading psychology, which is Brett Steenbarger's 'The Daily Trading Coach'. I must say so far this book has been the most useful for me, not so much for the theories and ideas, but more so in a practical sense (in regards to applying techniques to introduce and sustain reconditioning). It is arranged in a lesson format which is great for separating and focussing on developing specific skills.

My trading time has suffered somewhat as I am trying to get through all of the material first. I think by now I have learnt from the mistake of just trading for the sake of it, without having specific aims for each session. If I kept doing that I would almost certainly repeat all the bad habits without addressing them properly or even acknowledging them at all. Approaching the close of the year, with the racing cards reduced in both quality and quantity, it's not such a bad time to be focusing on establishing a good learning process. Although I will be trading in order to build up market experience, I can only expect it to take some time to digest and apply what I am currently learning.

One aspect of my new approach is implementing an effective feedback process where I go over each trade and learn from the process regardless of the result. The most valuable trades would be the unprofitable ones, as this is where I can focus on why it did not go well and bring to light a solution next time I am in a similar scenario. Previously I had a poor feedback process which involved watching videos and making detailed notes (too detailed), it was ineffective as I soon ran out of time to do this for each trade and effectively compromised the analysis to the extent it was not achieving its purpose. As a result I have refined the process and am also gathering information for each type of market scenario I encounter using the favs SP as a primary key. Overtime I am expecting to build up a database which will help me identify potential scenarios for each market I encounter.

The more I learn about this game the more scientific and less mysterious the whole process seems. Having said that though, and having faced my fare share of challenges in life, trading is one of the most challenging tasks I have ever committed myself to, with my motivation to succeed growing as I evolve.