More and more as I get to grips with my own financial position and difficulties experienced in recent years, I am coming back to bigger picture again. I am not saying I am not responsible for the financial difficulties I have had, but that I am increasingly aware of how my actions echo the behaviours of so many others out there – particularly in this UK so-called ‘home-owning democracy’.

When I took on my mortgage, I never expected to have protracted challenges to earning… Although I lost my well-paid job at the beginning of the 2008 crash; although I knew it was difficult to get work in the Valleys of South Wales, I believed I was educated and experienced enough to gain employment again.

But my skills have been in those replacable or expendable types of work. I learnt secretarial skills. I developed administerial skills and used my communication skills to build bridges between middle class institutions and those people from my own working class traditions, falling back on these basic skill sets for a good part of my working day.

Job growth, however, is a busted flush for many like me, who sat in the middle of the skilled sector.

MY efforts to learn whole new skills and create my own work and even seek self-employment have been out of some understanding that I might never secure a job again, even if I had have wanted to – which actually, I didn’t.

I have played for high stakes, but finally, my strife and stretches are paying off. Going online and putting my skills and experience out into the international market online has saved my bacon!

I am still selling my skills as before, but in a more creative way and in a way that brings me closer to where I want to be and closer to those, with whom I want to play.

The game is leaner and meaner, but my skills are being honed even more keenly than ever before. My crisis has happened and -who would have believed it! – I am coming out stronger than before.

My consultation and marketing skills are better than ever before. The question is now, how far are we through the present big picture of economic crisis and even more importantly, how will the Swiss economy, on which I now depend for the bulk of my freelance income?

How self-sustaining and sustainable is my income right now? I am still dependent on an economy to some degree linked into the European economy. Growth in the economy of my contract provider will be key. I find myself getting curious about a country I never before had any interest in and always believed was the homeland of the truly rich… That’s as may be.

But I am not so foolish as to believe that there are not businesses going ot the wall there too. I am having those conversations during the course of my work.

This awareness is making me even more keen and committed to giving my contract provider added value, offering copywriting consultancy and content, which wil guarantee greater degrees of success for him over his competitors.

I am digging deeper daily and learning all the time… Always with my eyes beyond on other prizes and other streams of income. I am hyper-aware that to depend on one single work provider is a risky strategy.

Even as I work my brain to death daily to produce wealth for another, I am continuing to spread my efforts to a bigger market in order to run with the dynamic of tapping into a global market to survive. Online is the only way for me to get through the crisis at home.

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So it’s New Year and I am determined to work on my focus this year. It is still the bank holiday today and so there are only three options for me in terms of work today.
Contrary to what a mindset coach might say about using today to get on with my accounts – which are due for submission at the end of this month (Aaargh!) – I am spending a little time clearing out my inbox and taking some time with my Forex training guru, Dr. Barry Burns.

As a trained hypnotherapist and a highly successful trader of over twenty years, I reckon this is time well spent. After all, my training as a forex trader is going to take time. I have to continue to study no matter what pressing earnings related tasks I have to do. The accounts can wait until later! I need to be consistently building my knowledge in preparation for starting paper trading in the next month or two (probably in time for my 48th birthday next month!)

Click Here To Get Your FREE Five Day Video Trading Course

Dr Barry Burns at Top Dog Trading is a fantastic teacher of the technical tools involved in analysing price action and guiding your trading in Forex markets: entry points, risk management, etc. But to me, any trader can teach this stuff fairly well with some practice if they know their stuff. What I love about Barry Burns is that he puts you in the right frame of mind first before even going near your screen. This is vital. I talk a lot elsewhere about Mindset and consistency of effort in this dimension of managing yourself and the effectiveness and profitability of any business.

I have already attended a variety of seminars online about how to trade forex markets as a beginner, working from home and more often than not, there is a lot of focus on the technical side of trading. Of course, this learning is crucial, but at the end of the day markets are unpredictable. At the moment they are-to quote our leaders – “febrile“. This means that one’s attitude and behviour needs to be even more under control before starting to deal with something that can bring out the most intense of our emotions – money!

Consistency and peace of mind are even more essential when stability is not present in the market if you do not want to lose your house! When the market behaves differently from what you expect, this can be unnerving and frustrating. At times like these, when economies are volatile, dealing in the market can be “largely a random walk“, says Dr Barry Burns. It is, therefore essential that we stick to our trading rules and stick to our favioured setup criteria for trading, which has a higher probability scenario.

Life is a risk; it is up to us to stack the odds in our favour. Consistent trading habits are a disipline that the most successful traders have mastered and constantly make reference to; we must plan our trade and trade our plan, be vigilant and patient in seeking those high probability setup opportunities and trade them whenever they occur.

This does not mean trading all the time, however. At the moment, as I am not trading, I am learning before I start, that I must not over trade when I eventually get really stuck in. For me personally, learning this lesson now could be crucial. I know what I am like when I get hooked on something! I am like a terrier! It’s one thing to copy the Big Dogs, but Dr. Burns refers to “having the discipline to wait like a cat in the brush until just the right moment (your high probability setup) and then jump on the trade without hesitation.” I love this analogy! It’s also kind of what I am doing in terms of my eduction and training too… The time to get stuck in will be right when I am good and ready!

I have already got a (work in progress) trading log set up, to start learning from when I inevitabley start making any mistakes. Anyone who understands the therapy process will know that a journal can be our best insight into why we do what we do and also when we do those things that do not help us, because some negative mindset got the better of us. I do not have money to waste and being in my late forties, I do not have a lot of time to get my nest egg sorted. It’s vital I see where my weak spots are, to learn fast and minimise my liability to myself as a budding professional trader!

On my Desktop, I already have a list of my day trading rules – yes even before I have started trading! – so when that glorious day comes, my brain will already be following the messages I have seen every day for the last month or so daily. This will help for me to follow my trading rules on auto-pilot more easily, because I already have that voice telling me to only trade to my rules, etc.

As a newbie and a late-learner it is probably even more vital that I be more disciplined than the average trader. On top of this, I have A.D.D. This increases my risk levels in terms of distractability or occasional impetuos behaviour. This is part of the reason – apart from the lack of trading capital – that I am working on my mental habits now. I know from other risky hobbies in the the past that to depart from your rules no matter how good that (dive/ surf /trade) “looks” or “feels” to you right now, if it is contrary to one’s plan and back-tested rules, you risk losing an arm and a leg!

I am pretty aware of my ‘emotional liabilities’ and so I understand the importance of what (trading) masters say when they recommend only diving /surfing / trading when in an optimal emotional and cognitive state. So trading when tired or after yet another row with my dear mother, is going to be a no-no.

In some senses, it does not matter on what you are focussed: be it athletics, business meetings, or academic studies, shopping; the mindset should always be the same to get the best from limited resources.

Time is our most treasured asset and where markets are concerned, it seems to me that a lot of SUCCESSFUL traders spend a lot of time waiting around for their set up, leaving less time for the actual process of active trading.

If this is the case, it’s even more likely we can become keyed up and excitable when the set up appears. These short time frames require the trader to be able to make split second decisions. When I have watched traders at work, my adrenalin is riotous come the moment of hitting the button! All that risk hinging on split second decision making. Given the level of angst and fear I feel just watching others, I know I have a way to go before I trade real money. Meantime I want to make sure my trader mind is sharpened and my emotions are totally centered and Zen-like!

Many day trading courses recommend keeping a detailed trading log. Apparently not many people use them however. I cannot help wondering if this is a key to the reason why such a high percentage of traders LOSE MONEY! As a kid I kept scrap books to help me review what was important to me. As a teen I kept a teeny-tears diary, so this mid-life-trader-journal should really just become a logical progression!

I’ve set up an Excel file with these headings: Date, Pair, Initial Risk, Win, Loss, Break Even, Avg Gain, Avg Loss, Pips / Swing, Notes

And in my notes I intend to keep an eye on what is going on around the times of my trade in terms of:
Thoughts and Feelings for Entry and Exit (for Trading Biofeedback). Notes on triggers for distress or anxiety and behavioural cues and outcomes.

The point here is to learn what I do in acutality. This is not just unknown territory to me in terms of a new income earner, I am aware I have some huge baggage in terms of money! The point is to consistently TAKE ACTION on my observations; turn successes and failures into new or more refined goals.

Observing the detail of what makes us act the way we do helps us identify what might otherwise be COSTLY lessons.

It’s too easy to get attached to what we want to happen in the market and become trigger happy or over-attached to a losing trade in the hope that the market will turn in our favour. This is NOT a hobby! I intend to regard this as a new profession and any business person will tell you that their diary is their best learning tool, in the absence of feedback form colleagues and customers. It’s our own personal SWOT analysis.

One trader refers to the following records: B/E points, 9 Pivot Levels, support and resistance:
R2, M4, R1, M3, CPP( – sell above; buy below. ), M2, S1, M1, S2

So, what I am learning from Dr. Barry Burns is that one’s trading rules are not solely about indicators, price bars, where you get in and where you get out, it’s also about learning to know ourselves – why we choose or choose not to act on these technical tools available to us to stay focussed on what we see the market do in reality.

Markets ARE INCONSISTENT, so it’s easy for those 95% to continue to fail because their rules are built on market action alone and indicators which do not always hold true. Like anything in life it seems to me, people fall into holes, because they do not follow the more important rules the learned rules about their own responses to situaltions and learned positive behaviour to change their outcomes for the better.

Barry Burns sums this up nicely in one of his articles: “If you find yourself resisting the importance of these rules about your own behavior, realize that you are one of the masses who feels the same way. But since the masses fail at day trading, you must set yourself apart and do something different than them….Successful people do what unsuccessful people are unwilling to do.”

Dr. Barry Burns is the owner of Top Dog Trading which teaches people how to avoid the long learning curve in day trading and helps people improve their focussed trading. I recommend any of his articles whether you are new to the game or think you are a veteran trader!

Click Here to View the Top Dog Trading Blog

I for one can’t wait to invest in my first trading courses with this guy, his material just makes perfect sense!

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I thought about the comind New Year a couple of weeks back and wondered what I might want to focus on in 2012 to get closer to where I want to be. For those of you who have read any of my previous blogs, you will know I have been trying a few things already and that I do have issues with focussing on one goal at a time.
We all struggle with this need to focus on the task in hand. In this digital age, focus and concentration is even harder to do, with all the distractions out there.

One of my first resolutions was based on the consistent news I was picking up on last year about the increasing costs to our purse and planet from the increasing cost of food. Last year, I neglected my garden whilst focussing on a low-leverage network marketing business. Meantime, I have been broke and have not always had my daily dose of five vegetables and fruit. My lack of greens has definitely taken its toll on my health this past few months.

So I decided that in 2012, I needed to add to my orchard, with salad and greens. As it happens, this ties in nicely with an affiliate program I am starting soon with a company called Wikaniko. I tend to buy products which are kind to the environment and as it happens, this company have ethics aligned to saving the planet too AND sell seeds! Bingo! I now have no excuses.

Today I got a second incentive to pursue this… I listened to a talk online from Michael Ellsberg, who was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, as well as cancer. He talks about the importance of nutrition to not just physical health, but mental health too. For me, this is also really relevant, as I have been diagnosed as being A.D.D. and breast cancer is common in my family.

This is his talk and below that is the link to a reference he makes to a an author he refers to who specialises in diet and its relation to mental health. The link is for a newsletter, as opposed to the free download help-book.

Here’s Michael Ellsberg:

Now, if you are thinking about making New Year’s Resolutions about your diet and health, take a look here:

http://drhyman.com/dr-oz-newsletter-sign-up/

So Have Very Healthy and Happy New Year! : D

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