What really is mental passivity and how does it affect your trading results?
Mental passivity is the opposite of an active mind. A passive mind is a mind that allows any thoughts and emotions to go through it without assessment and appraisal. I’ll be taking you through certain features of a passive mind.
The Passive Mind and Impulse Trading
Have you ever impulse traded before?
How did it happen?
If you pay attention closely, you’ll discover that it all starts with a passive mind. Impulse trading is a product of flashing thoughts. These thoughts just pop up in your mind and compel action. Normally, all thought must be processed before being acted upon. So, when you act by impulse, in most cases, you’re about to make a mistake.
Most flash thoughts are from external forces and most of these thoughts stem from what you perceive from the outside. Perceptions should be vetted because they can be wrong and misinterpreted. If your perception can be wrong, you must always vet them by guiding principles.
When next you’re tempted to act by impulse, don’t fall for it. Take a moment and process all thought processes, be sure you’re right, then act.
The Passive Mind and Emotion Trading
Most flash thoughts or thoughts in general produce emotions. And emotions can be negatively or positively charged. The inability to control your emotions and make use of only positive emotions like love, joy, peace, and confidence while trading can cost you a lot.
A passive mind most times just lets any thought flow through it and that produces vacillations evidenced in scenarios where you see a trader calm, focused, and profitable and the next moment, the same trader can be so emotional leading to wrong trading decisions.
Emotions are not altogether bad because sometimes, they can serve as a signal system to taking one decision against another. But my emphasis is on discouraging the allowance of all kinds of emotions to pass through and act on the mind unchecked and unapprised as this can be bad for you as a trader.
An active mind will reject almost instantly any feeling that makes for failure or a wrong trading decision as this is one way to keep the mind free from external influences.
The Passive Mind and a Passive Will
You may have heard of the herd mentality. This simply talks about people who seemingly have no will of their own. They don’t believe they can be the pioneers and influencers of their decisions.
In the trading world, we can easily identify them by their inability to pull the trigger even after a thorough analysis of the market. These traders will only buy or sell when told to do so and will never act confidently unless there are other folks telling them to go in that path.
The above description is an example of mental passivity in regard to the will. A passive will is very disastrous for traders as the market most times go against the herds and will need the fearless and self-confident individual to take the reins.
If you can’t actively engage your will to act or not to act, then you really can’t do well in the game of trading. If you’re the type that always waits for an external confirmation to buy or sell a stock or currency pair, then your mind is operating in passivity and can never take the giant steps that launch traders into the world of success.
Make a decision to rule your thoughts and emotions, and take control of your action center. Stay active and have an active mind.
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