Focus on the Decisions!

Take the time to visit the blog article, The Key to Breaking Trading Slumps, by Dr. Brett Steenbarger as he expands on my recent post about Focus on Decisions, Not Outcomes

Dr. Steenbarger also suggests an idea that I think is wonderful for all bloggers and in particular, financial and stock bloggers.

I’m interested in using posts to initiate some cross-blog discussions of issues: sometimes to agree and elaborate, sometimes to respectfully disagree and offer alternatives. If you’re a financial blogger taking a reasoned stand on an issue or taking the time to elaborate a point of importance to traders, by all means send me your URL and I’ll do my best to include your work in a discussion post.

Here are a few words of expansion by Dr. Brett based on the advice I offer in my original post:

This advice is spot on. Performance anxiety occurs when we become so concerned with the outcome of a performance that our worries interfere with the process of performing. Who hasn’t had the experience of fretting over making a perfect entry, only to have the market make its move without you on board? Or seeing a market move away from your entry point and telling yourself you won’t “chase” the market, only to see it make the extended move you expected all along? Those are manifestations of performance anxiety.

Many new readers have started to visit chrisperruna.com over the past month so for those of you not familiar, Dr. Brett Steenbarger has a must read blog and a couple of trading books published by Wiley:

Author of The Psychology of Trading (Wiley, 2003) and Enhancing Trader Performance (Wiley, 2006) with an interest in using historical patterns in markets to find a trading edge. He is also interested in performance enhancement among traders, drawing upon research from expert performers in various fields.