In The Zone

What is 'In The Zone'? My trading mentor did an explanation of trading in the zone that all professional traders are in at there peak performance. Obviously, I have not reach their level yet but I asked 'Have I ever being in the zone before and how does it feels like to be in the zone?

I reflected what I have done well in the past... My studies? swimming front crawl for 30 laps non stop? Yes, I am able to do them pretty effortlessly. What about driving my car from home to school? Yes, that too can be done effortlessly. Than doesn't that means I am in the Zone almost every day.

So effortlessly is what I feel when I am In the Zone. So what are the characteristics of being In The Zone? The first thing that comes to my mind is lots of practices. However, I recall at times when I prepared and practices very throughly, I may not be in the zone when the day the skill is required. Take for example driving test. My mind just goes blank everytime the examiner sits next to me.

So besides lots of practice, the other thing that I think I have when I am in the zone is Confident, not over confident. When one is confident, one is not fearful. Fearful and confident has a inversely proportional relationship. Over confident is extrapolating the confident into unknown areas. In trading, there are 2 words that can kill the account. Being fearful and greedy. A fearful person can enter a trade and got stop out quickly many times and when a winning trade comes in, fearful of being stop out, exited with a small profit. Or s/he may simply be so fearful that s/he did not enter at all. At the end, either s/he has many stop out and little winning trades that will negate his or her account or many small winning trades that could have resulted in costly commissions. On the other extreme, the greedy one, the overly confident person will ride both ways to the extreme. Riding a winning position is good but s/he may also be riding a losing position hoping for a return that never come.

Similarly, driving a car has two extremes. Fearful after an accident or go on aggression after an incident. Both can kill. In exams, one can become so fearful that resulted in a mental block or overly confident to beat the time and finished the papers without doing double checking but with the aim of wanting to show everyone s/he is the first to walk out the room.

Hence some sort of moderation is needed to be In The Zone, not too much and not too little. However, just confident is still not enough. One has to be subconscious about being confident and that is vital to achieving effortless. Imagine ending a trading day and surprised to see the profits and not knowing how it got there. In the Zone put one in some sort of trance, flowing with the task just like an orchestra conductor. Imagine finishing your 6 hours exam papers in 2 hours without even realizing it. Imagine getting to your destination in your car without even realizing how you are driving and what route you have took. That is the power of subconscious confident. And the good thing about subconscious confident is, it can be learned and transferred. Hence, to reach my next level of trading, the first thing I must not do is losing confident in the face of consecutive days of loss. Trade your rules, refine it until you run like a machine when you see a signal.

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