Anxiety can negatively affect your forex trading strategy. This anxiety usually occurs when you scrutinize every aspect of your trading strategy so much that you subject each action to excessive criticism. Anxiety affects everyone including students, artists, politicians, and athletes. The result is that people perform below their actual ability. Anxiety can be especially for forex traders. Every day, you experience a lot of pressure to make a profit with every decision you make. This can sometimes cause you to deviate from a winning strategy.
1.See the Bigger Picture
As a forex trader, you must keep in mind that it is impossible to tell the future with certainty. In forex trading, you risk your money on future price movements that may not happen. Most forex traders try to be able to see each trade become successful.
As a result, even when the trade is losing, they will hold onto it, hoping that the price reverses direction. In such a case, you are letting greed control you. In other cases, traders will close out too quickly when they make a small gain due to fear that it could turn into a loss.
However, if you take a step back, you will realize that one trade will not define your trading career. If it is, you have probably risked too much. Any trade, no matter how good, should be an insignificant part of thousands of trades that you will make in your trading career.
If you are having a bad day, take a step back and rest for a while. The markets will still be there when you get back. Keep in mind that there is no opportunity that is too good to pass ups. Trading opportunities might be infinite but your capital has a limit. With this bigger picture in mind, you should be able to handle some of the anxiety that comes with focusing too much on a single trade.
2.Use Data to Stay in Control
One of the aspects of trader anxiety is that you feel like you are not in control. However, this does not have to be the case. Today, you have the benefit of being able to access as much information as you need. This is unlike people in the 90s, where accessing crucial information was limited due to how costly and slow computers back then were.
Today, gaining forex insights is not limited to the news and a few executives. You can learn how to be a forex trader online and even access books written by some of the top minds in the forex trading dollars for a few pennies. Additionally, there are numerous forex forums online. If you are lucky, you might even find a mentor on one of these forums who will guide you into becoming a successful trader.
Think of trading as sitting for a tough exam. If you did not study for it well, you will obviously be nervous. However, if you take time to study for it, your anxiety will float away. While there is some risk associated with trading, having the right knowledge and using it to create a strategy will help you manage your anxiety. It will ensure that you do not make important decisions based on your emotions. Whether you trade full time or as a hobby, ensure that you familiarize yourself with all the tools required to become a successful trader. Besides that, ensure that you understood all the complex techniques that professional traders use. This way, even when you suffer small losses it will not lead to any anxiety since you know you will be able to enjoy some wins later. .
3.Get a Hobby Outside of Forex
If your entire life is focused on trading and things are not working, you might start to feel like your entire universe is about to end. This feeling can be amplified many times over for people who have little else going on in their lives outside of forex trading.
It is thus important that you avoid shutting out all other aspects of your life because you are a trader. For instance, if you notice that you no longer hang out with friends and they stopped trying to get you out of the house, you might need to make a few adjustments. If you do not, the anxiety will only be worse when things are not working well for you.
Find yourself a hobby or even join a competitive sport. In general, engage in something that you enjoy, even if it is a simple as taking a walk to the beach. This will give you an outlet for your anxiety when the market stops performing the way you predicted.
In general, do not beat yourself too much over making a few bad decisions. If you feel the anxiety coming on, just move away from the screens and take some time off to do something else. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as a perfect forex trader; everyone makes mistakes sometimes. Slowly drift back into the realm of the realistic and you will be surprised at how fast your trading performance can be turned around. .
4.Use the Set and Forget Strategy
The possibility of making a lot of money from a small amount of money is one of the reasons why many forex traders join the markets. In most other jobs, you are paid a given amount of money for a given amount of hours. However, a trader has the opportunity to make as much money as they can. Besides that, you do not have to work according to anyone’s schedule.
However, trading is not easy. Many traders believe that the only way to succeed is by micromanaging every trade with surgical precision. However, there is no need to do this. Micromanaging all aspects of the trade can cause a trader to let go too fast or hold on too long.
Just as you cannot predict the trade at the beginning, you cannot predict how a trade will pan out once you open a position. As a result, you should stop trying to manage a trade as though you can predict the future.
By using the set and forget strategy, you cannot open a trade and set the stop and limit and then let the trade work itself out. If you have a good strategy, this logic will prove quite profitable over time. If you need to modify the trade, you could allow the trading plan to have a break-even stop at a set time. Additionally, you could add the option to scale out of a position if the trade moves in your favor. However, you must avoid making brazen decisions such as closing a position due to a 50-pip gain when you had set it at 200 pips due to your fear of losing the 50-pip gain. In general, learn to see the bigger picture if you want to reduce the anxiety that comes with micromanaging your trades. .
5.Focus on the Process and Not the Money
The perfect trade does not exist. If you want to reduce your anxiety, start focusing on the process and not the money. For example, you could start giving yourself points for following your trading plan, cutting loses, or when you press your advantage.
At the end of each trading day, ask yourself whether you followed your laid out system and whether you made the right adjustments. Besides that, check whether you properly managed your risk. If you are able to confirm that everything worked, as it should, then you should award yourself points. If you find that you missed most of your personal benchmarks, you might need to make some adjustments. While the perfect trade does not exist, you can focus on perfecting your trading strategy.
This will help you make more money with time. Additionally, it will ensure that you do not suffer from the anxiety that comes with being uncertain of whether you are doing the right thing. When this happens, it negatively affects your emotional harmony, which can cause you to lose a lot of your money.
Summary
Trading is not gambling. You take calculated risks, you follow the right plan, and with time, you should become quite successful. This is unlike gambling where you have almost no control over the outcome of an event.
If you follow the steps above, you should be able to manage your anxiety. You should also think about increasing your risk gradually. It is well known that the level of anxiety increases with the amount of money you are using to trade. If you gradually the amount of money you use to trade, it will help your mind slowly adjust and you will be able to handle the anxiety as it comes. In general, keep in mind that anxiety is a natural human response to stressful situations. It is how you allow it to affect you that determines if you will succeed as a trader.
A trading mindset coach will help you to ensure that your mindset is absolutely focused, that anxiety is not even a factor when trading – only sharp analytical clarity. Call us for a free consultation today. .
