“Your focus determines your reality” – this is a quote that we all have heard at different times with different wordings. However, many forex traders have remained unsuccessful despite developing the quality of focusing. Where did they falter
The Golden Rule of Focusing
To find answer to this question, let us take a quick look at one of several verses of Bhagavad Gita where it says that focus should be on actions and not on results. Let us dwell a little bit more into this. The essence of this verse is very clear –
Focus on things that are under your control. Don’t waste your time and energy focusing on things that are not under your control.
More often than not, stock and forex traders focus too much on the results they want to get, thus paying little attention to the actions that bring those results. Or in other words, their focus is on profits and not on the process. Focusing too much on results will not bring in results. But focusing on the process will increase the chances of bringing in desired results. Moreover, focusing on results adds stress whereas focusing on process reduces stress. That brings us to the next question:
How To Focus On The Process?
To understand this, let us first look at what a process is.
A process means a well-defined method of doing a given task. In forex trading, you can have processes on
- Updating your skills & knowledge
- Learning about movement pattern of currency pairs
- Keeping yourself cool during trading hours
- Making post-mortem analysis of trades executed, and so on.
When these are done according to a well-defined process, you will not miss anything, your errors will decrease, and you can make most of your resources like time, energy, money, etc. It will also streamline the entire actions that you do vis-à-vis trading.
Step 1: Identification
So the first step on focusing on process is to identify the tasks that you routinely do and creating step-by-step process for all of them.
Step 2: Execution
Once you have laid down an effective process, the next step is to execute them. One common problem that many traders face during this stage is the urge to deviate from the pre-defined processes. While it is true that informed intuition has its role in forex trading, deviating from a pre-defined process is not a healthy strategy to be adopted frequently. This can be done in exceptional cases. The right way is to overcome your temptation and stick to the pre-defined process.
Step 3: Analysis
Once the trade is executed as per the process, you may move onto the next step which is to analyse the process to determine whether it needs any improvement. This is best done during the post-mortem analysis of the trade that you executed. If you did not get the expected results, you should analyse why did you fail and where in the process you need modification. Sometimes you will have to redesign your entire process. At other times, a minor change or modification would be enough.
Step 4: Implementation
The most important factor is your willingness to implement the modifications identified in the previous step. You should always be open to such changes and willing to adapt to changing conditions.
Thus, when your focus is on the different aspects of designing, executing, analysing, and improving the process of action, your mind does not wander away worrying about the results. Moreover, it helps you to invest every bit of time and effort on changing things that can be changed. In this way, you can influence the results more effectively than by focusing on the actions alone.
However, one point to be kept in mind here is that there are many factors outside the process that you choose that will influence the results. Those are all beyond our control. For instance, a change in government policy or outbreak of a pandemic are beyond our control. At the same time, these are factors that can influence the results. The only way out is to have plan B if at all things go out of hand due to factors beyond our control.
Focusing is a skill. It can be learned and perfected with the help of a forex trading coach. S/he can give you valuable insights on how to develop focus. But that is not enough. S/he can guide you on where to apply that skill and how to use that skill to get optimum advantage. When this is practiced over a period of time, you can find your results becoming consistent.
