It Might Not Be Worth Being A Nice Person Anymore

Esparta

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What does being “nice” mean? Kind? Helpful? Considerate? Selfless? Nice people are people you have generated positive feelings towards, but you might not remember the exact reason. I’m sure you think you are nice. Somewhere at some point, you made another happy because you sacrificed. Nobody really admits it, but being nice exhausts people. Not because paying for a meal for that friend really burnt a hole in your pocket. Not because saying your greetings and thank yous on a gloomy Monday morning was really that difficult. Not because the numerous favors your friend demands from you are all that trivial and annoying.

Nice people hope that by expecting nothing in return, it makes them even nicer.

Nice people hope that being nice somehow adds merit to their personality. Nice people sometimes expect that by being nice, others will return that positive energy equally. Nice people might not stop being nice, simply because they don’t want to be un-nice. Sometimes nice people are jealous of other people who can be even nicer. Nobody admits that it is exhausting, because that’s what being nice means. Murmuring about having to be nice makes you uncool. So you just choose to say “I’m tired of life.” But in reality, you are just tired of being the nice guy no one cares about.

What is that I hear? Making someone else happy is enough to make you happy? You can’t be happy about having to deal with your friend’s ridiculous self-abasing rant about how she doesn’t believe in love anymore. At 20.

No one realizes why nice people don’t get remembered. Nobody admits they have thought at some point: “Hey I’m that nice guy who helps everyone, why doesn’t this happen to me?” Everyone prefers to think they are the givers and the compromisers. It’s true – we all are. That’s why we don’t remember the last person who was “nice” to us.

We all grow up learning good deeds via rewards and appraisal. Doing something “good” gives an arbitrary expectation of something good or even better. That recognition doesn’t exist in reality. If you ever feel exhausted, just refuse to be nice for a moment. Tell your friend to just go to bed. And tell her honestly she doesn’t look good in that skanky short dress she wore last Friday. It doesn’t make you less of a person. Or a nice person. 

Credit: SARAH LEE 

#FoodPorn: These Are The Only Pictures Of Food That Should Be On Instagram

Grab your phone and scroll through the recently uploaded pictures on your Instagram feed. Eventually, you’ll come across a few pictures that display unappealing plates of food that should never, ever, be bragged about in a ten-word caption under the photo.

Why? Probably because the food was placed on a paper plate or maybe it just looks unappetizing. Very rarely do you come across a photo of food on Instagram that should actually be there.

We took it upon ourselves to handpick the best photos of food on Instagram that deserve to be uploaded. These pictures were chosen due to the artistic photography, cleanliness of the background and appealing appearance of the meal itself.

If your food photos don’t look like these, don’t post them on Instagram!

Credit: ANTHONY SELDEN

Philippines tagged most improved for business

THE PHILIPPINES emerged as the economy that improved the most in the latest issue of an annual joint World Bank-International Finance Corp. report that tracks changes in regulations applied to domestic small- and medium-sized companies.

  The 11th edition of Doing Business report showed the Philippines soared 30 notches from last year to land at 108th place among 189 economies on this year’s list. Libya, Myanmar, San Marino and South Sudan were added this year.

“The Philippines jumped in ranking by 30 points from 138 to 108, more than any other country out of 189 economies that Doing Business measures,” according to a prepared speech of World Bank’s Philippines Country Director Motoo Konishi that was e-mailed to media by the multilateral lender’s local office.

“This is the first major improvement for the Philippines in the Doing Business ranking since the report started 11 years ago.”

Apart from the Philippines, the other most improved economies in terms of ranking were Ukraine (up 25 places to 112th), Rwanda (20 notches to 32nd), Brunei Darussalam (20 spots to 59th), Russian Federation (20 to 92nd), Burundi (up 19 places to 140th), Guatemala (14 notches to 79th), Brazil (14 spots to 116th), Iraq (14 to 151st), and Kosovo (12 to 86th).

The top 10 positions were occupied, in descending order, by Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand, United States, Denmark, Malaysia, South Korea, Georgia, Norway and the United Kingdom.

Besides Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, faring better than the Philippines in Southeast Asia were Thailand (18th) and Vietnam (99th).

Those ranked below the Philippines were Indonesia (120th), Cambodia (137th), Laos (159th), Timor-Leste (172nd) and Myanmar (182nd).

In a briefing yesterday, Guillermo M. Luz, co-chairman of the National Competitiveness Council, noted Philippine ranking performance in the report’s 10 indicators this year was “a complete turnaround” from last year, when the country placed lower in seven.

“We have made improvements in seven out of the 10 indicators, so this year is a complete turnaround from last year,” Mr. Luz said.

“The 30 (-place) jump is the highest not just for the Philippines but also in the world this year.”

The report noted improvements in resolving insolvency (up 65 spots to 100th), getting credit (43 to 86th), getting electricity (24 spots to 33rd), paying taxes (12 to 131st), trading across borders (11 to 42nd), dealing with construction permits (up one place to 99th) and registering property (also one notch to 121st).

“These changes have been attributed to elimination of certain documentary requirements, guaranteed access to credit information, electronic systems for filing contributions, and impact of laws such as the Data Privacy Act and the Financial Rehabilitation and Insolvency Act,” the report read.

On the other hand, drops were seen in the areas of starting a business (down nine ranks to 170th) and enforcing contracts (three spots to 114th), while there was no change in protecting investors (128th).

“I’m impressed...This is a great jump -- 30 ranks from 138 to 108...” John D. Forbes, senior advisor at the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, said in the same briefing.

“But the tough challenge begins when you get to the neighborhood where economies have higher rankings.” -- D. E. D. Saclag

Credit: BusinessWorld

An introduction to psychology in trading

A big mistake that beginners make when first learning to trade, is to assume that developing technical or fundamental analysis skills alone will allow them to become successful. In fact, learning to control emotions is the most important skill that allow a trader to become successful, because emotions have the biggest impact on your results.

The role of psychology in trading

Successful trading is not down to any single trade, but a number of trades using a strategy. This means that a trader must be disciplined enough to stick to their strategy, even throughout a losing streak. However, human beings often do not behave in a logical way and there are many times that emotions influence us and we act differently to normal.

A trading strategy's success is determined by a number of trades. A successful trader must stick to the rules of their strategy and not allow emotions to get in the way.

Do you remember the last time you were very angry? Maybe you did something and you were surprised by your actions. As much as you regretted it afterwards, at the time you probably couldn't help it and furthermore, you are likely to act the same way again if you become angry in the future.

This is because the psychology of a person is made up of thoughts and feelings that are an incitement to act, and so psychology shapes our behaviour in every aspect of our lives – trading is no exception.

Emotions are inevitable – especially for a new or unskilled trader and they can prevent you from making an objective decision. For this reason, learning how to control emotion becomes paramount to successful trading over and above everything else.

The zone

When a trader is thinking clearly and is uninfluenced by emotion, they are said to be in the zone.

When a trader is thinking clearly and uninfluenced by emotion, he is said to be in the zone. When you are in the zone, you are in control of your behaviour and are able to follow a trading strategy in a logical and systematic way.

Some traders find it easy to get into the zone, but even those who struggle can learn to control their behaviour and become emotionally detached from trading.

Tharp's chart and the importance of psychology

Dr. Van Tharp is known for breaking down the trading process into three categories that affect traders. He categorises them by importance as follows:

• Trading strategy (10%)
• Money management (30%)
• Psychology (60%)

According to Dr. Tharp, the psychological outlook and an individual’s way of thinking towards trading is the most important factor for success.

The fact that the actual trading strategy is ranked the least important by Dr. Tharp, suggests that regardless of how successful a strategy is, psychology is the key to being successful.

Emotions that influence trading

The emotions in trading that have a negative impact on results are greed and fear. These emotions cause a trader to deviate away from their plan, which can lead to further issues, such as ego and revenge trading.

The following are examples of these emotions and how they can negatively affect trading results.

Fear of losing can lead to further losses

Fear of taking losses can ultimately lead to even more losses. The typical behaviour of a trader will be to close trades early, either when the trade has temporarily gone into a loss or a small win, and not letting the trade run its full course

When a trader has a fear of losing, they try to avoid them. This can actually increase losses.

For example, a trader may open a trade and place theirstop loss, say, 20 pips away – based on the strategy they use. In other words, there is a technical or fundamental reason for it being placed where it is.

However, a trader that is influenced by fear may close the trade prematurely, simply because the trade temporarily goes against them. So if the trade goes against them by, say, 10 pips, then the trade results in a 10 pip loss. If the trade turns out to be a winner, then the trader has just turned the winning trade into a losing one out of fear.

Another scenario is when a trader closes their trade as soon as it has gone into profit, out of fear that they can lose that profit. If the trade then goes on to hit the profit target, then the trader has reduced a full winning trade down to a much smaller win.

This behaviour ultimately turns a profitable strategy into a losing one, because the trader reduces the amount of winning trades and/or reduces the profit overall because of fear of losing.

Greed results in trying to take too much profit and end up with less.

A trader under the influence of greed will try to go for more profit and will not close their trade when their strategy dictates that they should.

When a trader experiences greed, it means that they try to go for too much profit and deviate from their strategy. For example, a trader may place their profit target in accordance with their strategy. This means that – as with placing a stop loss – there is a technical or fundamental reason for doing so.

However, when greed influences a trader, they do not close their trade when the strategy has dictated they should – they try and go for more. What can happen is that the trade can turn against them, ultimately ending up with less profit, or worse, a losing trade. This means that they actually reduce the profitability of a strategy because they try to increase their profit through greed.

A trader influenced by ego will never admit they are wrong

Ego can affect a trader, causing them to not close trades when their strategy dictates they should or continues to trade on the same analysis after their trade has been stopped out, because they believe they are correct in their original assessment.

A trader under the influence of ego does not want to admit they are wrong.
For example, if the trade does not go well, instead of closing their trade according to the strategy, they carry on taking a bigger loss than necessary because they cannot admit that they are wrong.

Another scenario may be that after taking a loss on a perfectly good trade, they do not go on to look for the next setup according to their strategy. Instead, they continue taking trades based on their original analysis because they believe they were right in the first place.

Revenge trading is chasing the money you have lost on a trade

Revenge trading is when a trader chases the losses they have made – they are so focused on winning the money back that they fail to realize that they are not trading with a set of rules and each trade ends up resulting in another loss.

The importance of discipline when trading

To avoid emotionally influenced trading, you will need to build discipline that will allow you to think as objectively as possible. There are several ways in which you can do this:

Trade with a tried and tested strategy

You are much more likely to remain calm under pressure if you have confidence in your trading plan. If a strategy has not been tested enough, it may lead to doubts that could allow fear to overwhelm the trader.

Demo-account trading

Having confidence in your plan will help keep you calm under pressure. Test your strategy with a demo account and accept the risk, because a 100% winning ratio is unrealistic.

Testing and further development of a strategy should be done on a demo account first before using real money. Using real money creates an additional pressure that is likely to amplify negative emotions that are involved when trading, which can lead to further losses.

Accepting the risk

A strategy with a 100% winning ratio is unrealistic. You must be prepared to accept losses. It is normal to hope that every trade turns out to be favorable. However, inexperienced traders are likely to experience a stronger emotional impact when they take a loss. In contrast, a profitable trader is able to accept losses as part of the trading strategy and move on to the next trade, without allowing greed or fear to affect future decisions.

Summary

So far, you have learned that ...

• ... new traders make the mistake that skills in technical and fundamental analysis is the most important element in trading.
• ... controlling emotion is actually the most important skill that a trader should focus on.
• ... Dr. Van Tharp has broken down the trading process into three categories that affect traders: strategy, money management and psychology.
• ... psychology is ranked as the most important element, followed by money management and then the strategy. This highlights that regardless of how profitable a strategy is, psychology can impede the ability of a trader to make money.
• ... fear of losing can cause a trader to close trades early before the trade has run its full course, which can lead to further losses.
• ... greed can cause a trader to leave trade in and not close at the specified profit target when their strategy tells them too. This can run the risk of taking smaller profits if the market then turns against them.
• ... ego is when a trader does not admit they are wrong and can influence them to either not close their trades when their strategy tells them they should or keep trying to trade in the same direction after their trade is closed.
• ... revenge trading is where a trader tries to chase the money that they have lost without any regards to a strategy.
• ... having confidence in your trading plan and trading with a demo account ultimately helps with learning to control emotion.
• ... a strategy with a 100% win rate is unrealistic, you must be learn to accept the risk on each trade.

Credit:Tradimo

The path to becoming a good trader

Learning to trade is a psychological process

When a beginner learns to trade, they progress through stages as they develop their mindset.

The most common learning model for trading is an adaptation of the four stages of competence model, developed by Gordon Training International, but with a fifth stage called theawakening moment.

The most commonly used learning model for trading is an adaptation of the four stages of competence model developed by Gordon Training International. It has been adapted to incorporate a fifth stage – an awakening moment. The following model will explain the stages that a new trader may experience when learning how to trade.

The five stages of learning to trade

• Unconscious incompetence
• Conscious incompetence
• An awakening moment
• Conscious competence
• Unconscious competence

Unconscious incompetence

This is the first stage that a trader goes through and they do not know that they have a lack of knowledge. In this stage, beginner traders will take their first few steps by downloading a platform, opening an account and begin to place trades.

However, they are influenced by emotion – usually lured by the thought of making a great deal of money in a short period of time.

Either one of two things are likely to happen for traders in this stage:

1. The trades turns against the trader immediately. Without experience, they only watch while the losing trades reduce their trading capital. They may even close their trades and open positions in the opposite direction, to try and get on the "right side of the market", only to have those turn on them as well. They simply lack the experience to deal with the market environment.
2. The trades initially go well, but motivated by a false sense of security, new traders take large risks without a basic knowledge of risk management and they wipe out all previous profits and more.

Eventually, the trader may move to the next stage or they may stop trading altogether.

Conscious incompetence

Traders in this stage now understand that they need to learn. Guided by the thought that the more trading knowledge they have, the better they will be able to trade, new traders will try to put what they have learned – from books, articles, DVDs, and forums – into practice.

Beginners also seek the help of expensive "experts" and fall for "get rich quick" strategies.

Traders in the conscious incompetence stage believe that the more trading knowledge they have, the better they will be able to trade.

When the trader continues to experience poor results, they begin to blame losing trades on the strategies or "bad" information that they received – not their own behaviour.

This stage may last a week or it may last several years – everyone is different.

The stage of conscious incompetence is the most dangerous for any new trader.

To see if you are in this stage, ask yourself:

• Have I stuck to a system?
• Am I using a trading journal?
• Do I look over previous trades?
• Do I know why I enter/ exit a trade?
• Do I take responsibility for my losing trades?

Answering no to any of the above may mean that you are stuck in this stage.

Awakening moment

Traders in the awakening moment will realise that successful trading comes down to the psychology of the trader and their approach to the markets.

A basic understanding that you will never be able to predict what will happen in the markets, starts to form. You begin to realise that making money is based on a series of trades that incorporate winners and losers, and that it takes discipline to stick to a system, cut losses short and let profits run.

A trader in this stage will begin to enter and exit the markets whenever their system tells them to, without judgement and despite the emotion they are feeling.

Conscious competence

A trader that has reached the conscious competence level will have progressed to the point where they stop trying to "pick" the winning trades. Whenever the system dictates that a position should be opened, they do so despite how the trader feels about it.

During the conscious competence stage, it still takes effort to be disciplined, however losing trades will be easier to deal with because the trader understands it is part of their system.

At this stage a trader is subject to emotion and it still takes effort to be disciplined, however losing trades are easier to deal with because it is understood that this is part of the process to make money overall.

Risk management becomes the key trading element and the approach is taken to build an account up over time and not to try to get rich quickly.

By continuing to gain trading experience, a trader can move to the next stage.

Unconscious competence

A trader is said to have reached the stage of unconscious competence once they have traded with so much practice that they are able to trade in an almost automatic mindset.

A disciplined approach requires very little effort and has become second nature.

Summary

So far, you have learned that ...

• ... you will go through a psychological process when learning to trade.
• ... there are five stages that you are likely to go through when you learn.
• ... unconscious incompetence is where the trader does not know that they need to learn and trades without any rules or a strategy
• ... conscious incompetence is when a trader understands they need to learn and seeks as much trading knowledge as possible, but still finds it difficult to be successful.
• ... the awakening moment is when a trader understands that the markets cannot be predicted and success comes down to sticking to a strategy – trading over a series of trades.
• ... conscious competence is where a trader now stops trying to pick winning trades, but takes trades according to a strategy – no matter how the trader feels.
• ... unconscious competence is where a trader has an almost automatic mindset and trades with minimum influence of emotion.

Credit:Tradimo

NSA website down, spy agency investigating: US official

INTEL HQ. The National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, as seen from the air, January 29, 2010. Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP

WASHINGTON, United States - The National Security Agency's website went down Friday and the US spy service known for hacking into computer networks said it was investigating the outage, a spokesperson said.

"We are looking into this," said Vanee Vines of the NSA, without offering any details about what had caused the site to go dark.M

The website, nsa.gov, went down Friday afternoon (US time), setting off speculation on Twitter that the site may have suffered a denial of service attack by hackers.

The hacker group Anonymous joked about the website going down in a tweet without saying if it had played any role.

The loosely organized, international hacker collective has frequently clashed with US authorities over file-sharing as well as allowing banks to handle donations to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.

The NSA has been at the center of a furor over its vast electronic surveillance operations, revealed in a series of leaks from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who has obtained asylum in Russia. - Rappler.com

Credit: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Why Most Traders Choke When Trading Real Money

If you’ve done very well on your demo account and then saw all your trading success crumble to pieces when you started trading live, today’s lesson is for you.

There is growing evidence from scientists that the reason why we tend to choke ‘when it really counts’, is simply because we are thinking too much. As discussed in the ABC news article Why We Choke When All Is On The Line, “Psychologist Sian Beilock of the University of Chicago calls it ‘paralysis by analysis.’ Beilock, author of the book, ‘Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To’, contends that too much thinking at the wrong time can lead to ‘logjams in the brain’.”

As traders, we are perhaps more susceptible to these “logjams in the brain” than almost any other profession. Having around the clock access to the market on our laptops, smartphones and tablets, along with the massive amount of economic data circulating around the internet each day, makes it extremely easy to fall into the destructive habit of thinking too much and over-analyzing our trades. Thus, as a trader, you have to consciously work against over-analyzing the market or you will very likely end up sabotaging your own trading success as a result of trying to analyze too many variables and from simply thinking too much. Let’s discuss how you can avoid the over-analysis bug and make a successful transition from demo to live account trading…

How your brain is “getting in the way”…

Many traders are simply creating “logjams” in their brains once they switch from demo trading to live trading because they begin to over-analyze everything. The culprit behind this sneaky account-destroyer is primarily the increased awareness that there’s a lot more on the line now because your real money is at risk. This is really not much different than a basketball player being more aware that his free throw shots are much more critical in a close game with 30 seconds left. In the case of both the trader and the basketball player, the individual begins to let their brain areas “responsible for planning, executive function and working memory” override what was previously a near automatic and stress-free process.

You probably can relate to what I’m talking about if you’ve demo traded for a while before switching to a live account. When the pressure is not on the line as with a demo account, you are not thinking too much and you are acting much more on “auto-pilot”, in such a way that allows you to be almost “in the zone” with your trading (trading in harmony). The only thing that is different between demo trading and live trading is that the money is real on a live account, but this fact clearly causes all kinds of new mental process to kick in for most traders, and it is largely these unnecessary mental processes (thinking too much) that causes many traders to self-destruct shortly after starting to trade live.

Here are some very common “traps” that many traders fall into after having success on their demo account upon switching over to a live account:

1) They simply begin watching the charts much more than they were on demo. This causes them to over-trade and deviate from the successful trading behavior they exhibited on their demo account.

2) Where they had no problems sticking to their trading strategy on demo, many traders seemingly throw everything out the window once they start trading live. They change from disciplined, skillful chart technicians to over-trading,gambling trade-aholics.

3) Many traders start slapping on tons of confusing and messy indicators onto their charts after trading live. They begin to change their previous simple and successful trading strategy into a “Frankenstein” trading method that would make absolutely no sense to anyone in a “logical” frame of mind.

4) Traders begin trying to “avoid” taking losses once they start trading live. On demo, they didn’t think twice of a losing trade, because there was no money on the line and they were not feeling any “pressure”. Live account trading, especially when you’ve risked too much on a trade, induces traders to begin thinking of all kinds of ways they can “avoid” losses; hedging and not using stop losses are the main ones. Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try, you cannot avoid losing trades, thus, you need to deal with them and accept them, not try to avoid them.

5) Many traders start following economic news reports after they start trading live. On their demo account, they didn’t care at all about NFP, GDP or Retail Sales, now they can’t seem to stop reading about them and about how they “might” affect the markets. This is over-analysis at its finest, or perhaps I should say at its “poorest”.

These are only a handful of the ways that over-thinking and over-analysis manifest themselves when traders switch from demo to live account trading. There are many more. Your job as a trader, is to work to stop yourself from thinking too much about your trading once you start trading live, sounds easy I know, but it’s not. We will discuss how to defeat this trading problem at the end…

You’re not alone

Whilst choking under pressure is certainly a bad thing, you can take some comfort in the fact that it affects almost everyone at some point and does not discriminate across professions. From the article discussed above on Why We Choke When All is on The Line:

“Choking under pressure is even more conspicuous in professional golf. It’s not uncommon to see a pro drive the ball around 300 yards and then miss a one-foot putt. Just two years ago, golfer Jason Dufner blew a four-stroke lead with four holes to play, losing the prestigious PGA Championship in a devastating demonstration of choking under pressure. “

Indeed, it is not just traders who choke when ‘it really counts’; professional sports players deal with this on a regular basis, you may have even dealt with it in a friendly recreational game of golf or basketball with your friends. It clearly is the over-use of the brain that causes professional sports players to choke as well as traders.

Giving a speech in front of an audience is something that gives many people trouble, despite having recited the same speech perfectly many times before getting up in front of an audience. You can find examples of “choking” under pressure and over-thinking in almost everything, from sports, to jobs, even to relationships; people have a tendency to make things much more difficult than they need to be, and especially in trading.

The researchers who ran the studies discussed in the article above came to some interesting but maybe not-so-surprising discoveries about exactly WHY people tend to choke when it counts:

“Researchers generally concentrate on two different explanations for why experts choke. Chicago’s Beilock believes it boils down to two opposing theories: Either the person worries so much even a well-practiced talent can fail, or he or she concentrates so much on the task at hand that the brain overrides the well-trained muscles.”

The above explanation also explains why traders tend to fail when they switch from demo to live accounts. They begin to worry about their trades and over-think them, even if they are a very talented and skilled price action analyst, over-thinking can quickly destroy their trading account. Also, trying too hard causes you to do things you weren’t doing on demo. You probably were not forcing trades on demo, you had a very care-free approach, because nothing was really on the line as with your live account. What you need to do then, is trade your live account with the same relaxedtrading mindset that you had on your demo account. Here are some tips to help you do this…

How to stop choking on your live account…

OK, here’s the “meat” of today’s lesson, read the following points closely because if you really understand what I’m saying and ACT on it, YOU will begin to experience less stress and struggle in your trading, and more success:

1) The first and perhaps easiest thing that you can do to stop over-thinking your live account trading, is to back off your dollar risk per trade. In other words, experiment with the dollars per trade that you risk until you get it down to an amount that allows you to focus on other things. If you’re staying up all night glued to your charts because you have a big position on, it’s too big. Your risk per trade is 100% within your control, and if you do not control it, it will get out of hand and stir up all kinds of emotions within you, mostly ones that hurt your chances at making money on a trade. If you do not control your risk, it will “control” you by making you feel like you have to watch the charts and like losing on a trade is a terrible thing you must avoid.

2) As I mentioned in last week’s trading lesson: Snowball Your Trading Success and Stop Losing Money, many professional traders essentially make sure that they are “distracted’ from the market, and this helps them to avoid over-thinking and over-analyzing their trades. If you put a trade on and then go play 18 holes of golf or go do basically anything besides sitting around watching your trade, you are going to end up much further ahead than the trader glued to their trading platform either on his computer or on his smartphone every free second he or she has.

The article I discussed at the beginning of today’s lesson concluded with this: “Chicago’s Beilock says it may help to just figure out a way to distract yourself. Maybe instead of thinking so hard about making that free throw, Shaq should have hummed a little tune.”, in regards to NBA player Shaquille O’Neal consistently missing free throws in close games. This technique works almost the same in trading…if you distract yourself by doing things OTHER than sitting around watching and thinking about your trades, you will be SIGNIFICANTLY  less likely to over-think, over-analyze or over-trade, and thus your chances of making money consistently will increase DRAMATICALLY.

3) Finally, if you really want to give yourself the best shot at avoiding the over-thinking bug that so often infects many traders as they switch from demo to live trading, it will be critical that you trade with a simple and clear trading method. It’s almost impossible to not think too much when you’re staring at 10 different indicators on your charts whilst watching CNBC and reading the latest economic news on Bloomberg. All of that “stuff” is wasteful and unnecessary to successful trading. I want you to take on a minimalist approach to trading, as that is what has worked for me and I know it can work for you if you try it. I have no stress in my trading anymore, even when I have the inevitable losing trade.

This minimalist approach to trading really is the ONLY trading approach in my opinion, because the very nature of risking your hard-earned money in the market is something that makes us humans extremely prone to stress and over-thinking / anxiety. If you do not work to contain these things, they will very quickly destroy your trading account. 

Credit: Nial Fuller