What Does FOCUS Mean

Focus mean different things for intraday traders trading the M1 or m5 charts compared to the Swing traders of H1 or H4.

What does it mean for Intraday Traders on Faster Time Frames

Most intraday traders will trade the M1 or M5 time frames. Whether its Forex, Indices or Individual Stocks. It depends on your style and strategy but generally M1 is most intense time frame. For trading the M1 chart, it literally means watching every bar.

No matter, you're in a trade or out of it. You WATCH. Which means you will , naturally experience breaks of concentration that might result in missed trades. Often it's a matter of seconds between missing or getting-in, on the best trade of the day. So better come up with good techniques and solutions to stay on top of this. STAY FOCUSED AT ALL TIMES

You have to work on your ability to "Hold your Concentration". ADHD Issues? Well, you gotta fix it.

To remedy that, enforce deliberate breaks every 30 min. 2-5 min. Look away from screen, possibly out of the window if you are near one. Focus on distant things. Empty your mind.

When to take breaks?
You can take breaks when you know exactly what is happening and look away for a bit. It could be time based or situation based. As long as the GAME is on, you stick to your chart.

What does Focus Mean for Swing and HTF Traders?

For the Swing traders its a bit different. It's about keeping an overall trading focus for the week and the day. Reminding yourself of your months and weekly targets, (for beginners remind again and again what is your trading plan and strategy rules). And then getting out of the minute focus.

You start your day by reviewing your last nights notes and analysis. You pursue that, build on it or scratch some parts of it and you move into the open and set your orders etc. Then you take your focus away from the chart to other things but promptly come back to it when it's time, such as top of the hour top of the sessions.

If you are "in trades" you obviously want to check every bar/period. If not in trade, and you are waiting /expecting something is setting up then you want to keep a soft focus and set alerts. If Nothing seems to be happening for that day, you focus on journals, longer term analysis and update your stats etc.

So FOCUS means different things for different type of trading methodologies and personalities. The most intense obviously is M1. But it also has the MOST potential for Fastest Growth and Instant Results.

Not everyone is cut out for either type of trading. Most traders do well on higher time frames. Which type of trader are you? 

What Happens in AIMS Skype Live Trading Room?

What do we discuss in Skype Live Trading Room when we are not trading? 

Below I'll post some excerpts of the type of disucssion that happen in our Skype Live Trading Room. We believe that trading is 80% in the mind and so we focus more on the most important part of trading.

[09:56:51] Immy - AIMS: The Most Important thing I'd like to share, from all of my trading experience is this

You gotta learn to Trust Yourself.
You gotta learn to trade your own belief system. And you want to do that while you follow the Holy Grail of trading

Want What The market Wants (Thank You Dr. Bill William) 

Which basically means (took me years to understand) only trade when there is a trading signal plus your belief system in line with it.

[10:01:05] Immy - AIMS: What we as traders get paid for is

to wait

>>> waiting for proper entry
>>> waiting for proper exit

[10:01:27] Immy - AIMS: That's where we make money.
[10:01:47] Immy - AIMS: we don't wanna force the market, we don't want the market to be in tune with us, we want to be in tune with the market

[10:02:49] Immy - AIMS: "for us to get in tune with the market, we have to change our belief system, we're simply are not going to be able to change the market" Williams.

[10:06:40] Immy - AIMS: If I were to give you $10,000 and send you to Vegas would you like to spend all the money? would there be a problem?

[10:06:55] Immy - AIMS: now imagine if I ask you to double that money for me? can you do it?

[10:08:27] Immy - AIMS: The answer to these questions will determine if you can actually become a good trader or not. We want to work on our belief systems and get to the point where you can say, yes give me the 10K and I'll trade it and double it for you. With no problems. If you can think this way, you WILL get there. So changes in the belief systems are required not THE METHOD
Don't ditch TZ1, don't introduce  a new indicator or remove one... Focus on the 80% of the equation. THE SELF

The 3 Month Challenge

Hi,

I'm just copying one of my posts in our forum. Thought I'll share this in public.

The Three Month Challenge 

We are going through a three month challenge in our Skype Room.
This exercise involves sticking to our system for this period of time and keeping a record so that we can monitor our performance.

The Goal of The 3 month challenge is to achieve at least 90% discipline. We are NOT interested in how much money we make or lose. We are not interested in how many pips/points we make or lose. Our main objective is DS18/20. And we ought not do more than 1 T20 per week. so we are looking into 12 T20's.

[The T20 Principle eBook is available inside AIMSForum] 

Trading is like any other business. You need to know how to run a business. If you want to run a successful trading business. This is your 3 months Course to work on your skills of running that business. The prime skill we are working on is Discipline.

We use the mechanism of T20 to measure the achievement of our objective.

Before you think of leaving the system/challenge, I want you to understand the above. Some of us may have left the challenge or others may not even started it, because they lost focus or misunderstood the objective of this exercise.

It will be harder to remain disciplined and keep trading "error free" with a system that generates more signals than the system that generates lesser number of signals. AIMS The HUNT is a highly successful trading system with 66% win rate. But it generates less number signals per week. This is a good thing for our purposes.

Tools that will help achieve this goal.

1. Journal Writing. Keep a detailed Journal about every trade you take. Make use of the PEERCED analysis.
[Explained in our Trading Plan 2016]

2. Record your trades in your journal utilising the T20 principle. Evaluate the result of every trade from three dimensions. a. was the entry setup correct b. was the trade managed correctly and c. did you follow correct risk and money management rules.

3. Join a group of traders who are doing the same thing. A group working towards a common goal makes life easier and people find easier to remain in control and disciplined. Trading is a lonely game, being surrounded by like minded people really helps.

4. Create a myfxbook account and share it with your group so that your performance can be criticised. The next time you take a trade, you will be aware that you will look like a fool when others find out you broke your rules.

Have a great weekend

Join The 3 Month Challenge.

Trusting Your System and Objectivity

It is very important to trust and continue to take objective actions as you process
the trading signals generated by your system. 

We have to learn to accept and take action based on the information given to us by the market
through the medium of our trading system. We have to accept and understand what the chart tells us
 rather than focus more on our  "feeling" about it.


Don't trade with your feelings or what you think about the markets. Our thoughts often take us
into the future trying to predict or they take us to the left of the chart pondering over the past.
Our thoughts make us look into the history tab of our platform or the running profit and loss for the day.


On average we experience and process 60,000 thoughts a day. And these thoughts make themselves
 known to us and get manifested inside our body as emotions and feelings. Yes, thoughts manifested
 are emotions, we feel emotions, we feel the manifestations of our thoughts. When you feel anxiety,
 stress or boredom it is because of the thoughts you have processed earlier.
The thought process happens ahead of those emotions.


So when you become aware of your emotions that you don't want or like you know that you have been thinking the wrong things. If you remain conscious at all or most of the time you will be in control of how you feel.


So our feelings are our feelings. They are inside of us. But the information that we see on the chart
are coming from outside, from the external environment. They become part of our inner self, the
internal environment but don't come from within.


What we need to is to respond in the manner that is the most objective and accurate. In order to
achieve that we have to find out and decide and document our course of action well in advance. The
actions that we take must have been already planned ahead of time.


Stop judging your template, your trading system or signals. Simply accept the information and take actions accordingly. If you're not sure then say no thank you with gratitude. But keep an eye open.


When the game is over you'll have the chance to go over the days performance and find out how well you did. IF you have passed valid set-ups you can then compare and analyse why did you perceive what you did and why did you take the course of action that you took. Was your perception correct or was it not.

If it was not, was it due the cloud of fear and greed or other emotions or was it based on market generated information?


If it was based on "objective" mental and technical analysis then you have done well but if it was a result of any of the negative emotions then you've made mistakes. It is time to enforce your disciplinary procedures which should have been laid out in your written trading plan.

May the Pips be with you! 

9 Reason why everyone should have a Trading Plan

What is a Trading Plan? 

"A trading plan is a complete set of rules that covers every aspect of your trading life. Many experts refer to the need to have an ‘edge’ which will tip the balance of probabilities of success in your favour." Say Tim Wilcox who wrote and shared a simple but powerful trading plan template int he trade2win forum about 10 years ago.

Everyone Needs a Trading Plan. If you don't have one, anything you do is a mistake. 

A trading plan will make the act of trading simpler than it would be if you traded without one. It will limit your opportunity to make bad trades and it will prevent many psychological issues from taking root.

9 Reasons Why YOU should have a Trading Plan 

[How to be a consistently successful trader? Have a Plan]

1. Relaxed, stress free trading that is simpler with a plan than it is without one 
2. Ability to monitor your progress, diagnose faults and amend the plan accordingly 
3. A plan helps to prevent many psychological issues from taking root 
4. A plan that is adhered to strictly will reduce the number of bad trades 
5. A plan will help prevent irrational decisions in the heat of the moment 
6. A plan enables you to control the only thing you can control - yourself  
7. Professional traders are highly disciplined. A plan will instil a large measure of discipline into your trading. Gamblers tend to lack both discipline and a plan 
8. A plan will enable you to trade outside your comfort zone. How many times have you let a loss run and cut a profit short because it was the comfortable thing to do? A plan, executed with discipline, will help to prevent this from happening 
9. A plan is your roadmap which will enable you to get from wherever you are now to wherever you want to be – i.e. consistent profitability 

All credit goes to Tim Wilcox for sharing this knowledge and to Steve of www.for-exe.com for sharing the link/document with us. Tim has shared a Trading Plan Template that should help all traders at any stage of their trading to formulate a great trading plan.

The template (and, by implication, your plan) – is designed in such a way that if you do take a ‘wrong turn’ on your roadmap, you will know about it very quickly and have the opportunity to correct the problem before losses spiral out of control.

Thanks Tim!!!

Link to Trading Plan Template 

The GREAT Secret Remedy to Get Rid of FEAR

I share with you a technique that I have been using for a while but only recently found words for it to be explained and shared with others . 

Its been part of my unconscious self now I have found it on the conscious plane so that I can share it with you. 

(perhaps this was not necessary to mention, but anyway) 

The way to get in to the zone is to "create" conditions "Deliberately if possible" that allow you to enter and/or remain in the zone. 

The Four Conditions:

1. Enjoyment: If you enjoy trading then you won't need anything but we all know if you enjoyed it you won't be scared or if you were not scared you'd enjoy it anyway. if you cannot find ways to enjoy trading on its own yet then do something that puts you into that mood e.g. a song of your choice or a picture or whatever (wank? hmmm may be) The T20 Principle can effectively divert bring the focus of your attention from avoiding losing trades or hitting winning trades to "being disciplined" and following your rules. If you do this exercise enough times you will find "Gratification" in following your rules instead of the "result" of the individual trades. TRY IT. 

2. Focus: This is something you can deliberately enforce on yourself. Focus on the objectives. Focus on the chart, and focus on the indicators and information that is in the now. Don't allow your thoughts to go back in the past or jump into the future. Don't make associations and try to fill the "uncertain" future with anything from your thought process. Just be in the now and stay there. 

3. Relaxation: Use any of the techniques discussed in our ebook AIMS - Activating the Zone eBook to help you to relax. There are techniques we need to apply out of trading hours (these will keep you generally calm and relaxed in normal life) as well as techniques for instant effects during trading hours on spot (these technique will help you relax during a trade or a session). 
One easy one is this

>>>>>>>>>>TAKE A DEEP BREATH. focus on your breathing. ahhhhhhh feel better. <<<<<<<<<<<<<

4. Self Trust: How do you trust yourself, you ask. Well its a process. You have to "consciously" and deliberately "force" yourself to take signals and follow your plan numerous times and that will gradually build this "confidence" in self step by step. Its akin to driving. You have to watch every thing carefully and try to do it as perfectly as possible. Repetition is the Mother of all SKILLS It may be uncomfortable at first but it will only get better with practice. 

Perhaps, most of you know the above already if you've read my other stuff but why am I repeating it? 
Because after bringing the above into conscious awareness right now, we are ready to know the next bit. 

The GREAT Secret Remedy to Get Rid of FEAR

If you experience FEAR you have a great information at your disposal. Don't resent it just accept that you are in the state of fear and acknowledge its existence. As soon as that happens you gain the upper hand. Because now you are AWARE, you are CONSCIOUS. 

You know you ARE scared. Here is what you do next 

Be GRATEFUL. Yes, start with being grateful for "being scared" Say Thank You, say thank you to yourself for feeling scared and experience the fear or stress because your mind is doing you a favour and "protecting" you for what it "perceives" as a "threat", something that may harm you. 
Lets acknowledge that your mind is 2 million years old designed to protect you from those dangerous animals from EATING YOU alive or tearing you apart. 
(The CROODS)
  

Contrary to the false perception of your mind the things in the market are NOT THREATS or DANGERS. 
You've got everything in control. 
1. You have a mechanism to LIMIT YOUR LOSSES. You put a limit on your loss and 
2. You have a mechanism to INCREASE YOUR WINS, 
3. You have employed a formula that gives you an advantage in the markets and helps you CREATE profits. You have a statistical advantage, an edge and
4. you have mathematical formula that would help you grow your account at an exponential rate. Yes, Compounding. 
Remind yourself of the power of "Compounding" and Asymmetric risk rewards. 

"Eat Like an Elephant and shit like a bird" hehe 

Now, after being Grateful for this SIGNAL of Fear and swiftly move to being grateful for other things in your life. Anything that you can think of, anything that you acn see. How about the eye that you are seeing this with? be grateful for tiny little things and the big major things in life. 
In a few moments you will find that there is no more FEAR. FEAR cannot exist if your are GRATEFUL. Being GRATEFUL and being scared cannot co-exist. 

Do not FIGHT Fear, simply shift the FOCUS of your ATTENTION to GRATITUDE 

Try it you will thank me later!

Get Rid of Poverty and Scarcity Mentality

How do you break off the scarcity mentality when everyone around you is stuck in it including yourself?

You can totally change your personal belief system, totally breakout of your scarcity mentality.

The only person you can change is yourself. Like Michael Jackson sings in his song,

"I'm gonna make a change for once in my life,
Its gonna feel real good,
gonna make a difference 
gonna make it right .... 

......

I'm starting with the man in the mirror I'm asking him to change waysand no message could have been any clearer

If you wanna make the world, a better place,
take a look at yourself and then make a change, 

Step 1. You Make Yourself a Big Fat Check 

There are millions of poor people in the world. If you look at your personal worth and compare yourself with the poor people in the world, almost half the human population i.e. 3 Billion people live on less than $2.5 a day. You've gotta be grateful for what you have, specially if you're anywhere in the west. You gotta get the fact that if you want to get out of scarcity mentality you've got to start appreciating everything that you have. Even the tiny little things.

"Be Thankful for what you have;
You'll End up having more.
If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never,
ever have enough." ............................. Oprah Winfrey 

Step 2.  Use this Automatic Money Machine Mantra

Every time you spend money say this,
"there is always more where that came from".
This is powerful. Super simple  way to retrain yourself in the "TRUTH" about money.
This can work as your own personal ATM, (Automated Cash Machine)

Step 3.  Have a Fun  Fund

Have some fun once a week or a month at least.
Have a piggy bank or a saving account and start putting small amounts into it regularly. Use that money to have fun over the weekend of once a month .You don't know how powerful this on is. It will help with your creativity and increase your vibration to abundance.

Step 4. Increase your Knowledge

Read self help books, investment books and blogs (like this one hehe). Read books about money. Yes, absolutely, you have to get your mind right, keep reading. Go to seminars, attend webinars and listen to books. Whatever works for you, increase you understanding and truth about money.

Step 5. Give to Get More  [The Most Important one]

The richest people in the world are the biggest philanthropists, charity givers. If you want to increase you wealth a little bit start with giving away 1% of your income per week or per month. But if you really want to make money and increase your wealth start giving away 10% every month. This is the secret of making tons and tons of money.


Thanks to Marie Forleo,  The sweet lady who came up with these brilliant steps. I totally believe in this and am a big proponent of Step 5. Totally go for it and experience the magic first hand. Go on what's stopping ya? 

Self Sabotage - Traders often face this problem

A problem that might haunt you at some stage of your trading

There is a certain human mental pattern of behaviour that might occur to you when you start live trading or in some stage of your trading. It may even happen to some people while demo trading.

When you are having a losing day you will be more prone to take more trades and suddenly you will find that taking a trade would become so easy. This is because you want to either recover your losses by trading more or you are engaging in "Revenge trading".

But on the day you have your first few trades as winners you will, all of a sudden find it hard to take more trades. This is because you are protecting your profits for the day

The former case would usually be a choppy day and the later usually a moving trending day.

When you find yourself doing this your losing days will often be double or even more of your usual winning days. In some peoples case that losing day often wipes the profit of the entire week if not month.

This is a trait/habit that is not found in consistently successful traders', its not one of their habits or they have learnt to overcome it.

Suggested Actions

So keep an eye on this. keep a max loss for the day limit and don't keep a max win limit. but if you want to keep a limit on the winning day then keep a max loss lets say 50 pips or 3% then put a max win limit of 5 or 6%. something along these lines. Moreover work on integrating the 5 fundamental beliefs about trading found in the first post of my journal.
(Journal is available to AIMS Members Only) 

AIMS Stress Free Trading - Activating The Zone This book may help you Understand and Resolve Your Psychological Issues pertaining to Successful Trading 

What do we talk about in our Skye Live Trading Group

Hi,

I thought I'll share some examples of discussions from our Skype Live Trading Group. While it is possible you may get some nice trading signals during your presence we think that it is not important. Because as they say,

"Feed a man a Fish and you've fed him for a day, Teach him how to Fish  and you've fed him for life"

So you get more than just a fish inside the room. We share what we have learned about the fish and the pond. We know which fish taste good, where to catch them and what are the perfect times for catching one. We also know the different tasty recipes of cooking the fish in several different ways. So how do you like your fish? 

Frank asks a Question which basically meant this, 

"Is there a way that we can find more accurate information about the instrument we trade, so we can make more informed decisions than we already have so that we can increase the chances of hitting more winning trades". 

So I thought I'll share my answer here with you. 

[16:03:16] Immy AIMS: why would I need that?
[16:04:11] Immy AIMS: I'm not sure how that will help me in trading when I only need to know, whether there is a signal to buy or sell.
[16:11:18] Immy AIMS: more knowledge means more fear
[16:11:26] Immy AIMS: in trading, knowing less is MORE.
[16:11:40] Immy AIMS: in life knowing less, more specific knowledge is better for life overall.
[16:13:25] Immy AIMS: e.g. if you are an engineer, know about your stuff, do it perfectly and elegantly in most efficient manner, helps you achieve more than trying to learn everything about all engineering world. you'd lose focus. If trading dax on m1, knowing when there is a signal and major economic events is better than knowing when will BMW release its data, i'll have to keep a track of 30 companies. on m1. bloody hell.
[16:14:17] Immy AIMS: I'd rather join NASA as an astronaut :)
[16:14:31] Immy AIMS: ok out of the shorts and done.
[16:15:11] fran87wonneberger: maybe you are right,man
[16:15:22] Immy AIMS: The Fruit Strategy does not even get you in trouble within choppy markets. A few tries and you know its chop so you stop. if not a chop just take fruit and SAR and you'll be ALWAYS in line with the trend.
[16:15:54] fran87wonneberger: 15:54 y took short fruit gmt
[16:16:24] Immy AIMS: The first thing that a typical trader does, addressing "the Problem of losing trades" is to "gather more information about the market".
[16:16:39] Immy AIMS: it makes perfect sense in common life. you want to solve a problem, gather n trading, though, it is the worst mistake. because Losing is not a problem
[16:16:59] hthang140873: I wish I can thing and do like you but I cant at the current
[16:17:24 | Edited 16:17:38] Immy AIMS: I repeat, problem in trading, if you're not making money is NOT, I repeat NOT losing trades. 
[16:18:04] Immy AIMS: let me rephrase, your problem is not the face that your are making losing trades.
[16:18:20] fran87wonneberger: i carry big fx baggage
[16:18:45] Immy AIMS: let me rephrase, the problem that stops you from becoming a consistently successful trader is not that you gather losing trades.
[16:18:56] fran87wonneberger: the good thing is that i am doing well since i trade the dax now i see  fx mkt differently as well
[16:19:54] Immy AIMS: but the mind thinks losing is a problem and it needs to be fixed. so you go out in search of more information, better information and more "accurate" information.
Sadly though you'll be Greeted by all too clever marketers who KNOW that you're in search of holy grail so they sell you dreams and you want to believe them.
>  because you're frustrated,
> you are too tired of losing,
> you so eagerly want to win.
> you want to make millions out of trading just like the hundreds of city boys whizzing around in their brand new ferraris.
> You want to have that life of luxury and carefree, "all-bills-paid-no-worries" "money-no-problem" Life.
The marketers present these "Carrots" to you or presents to you known and common trading "problems"  and then gives you the carrot. You are ready to fall for it.
[deleted irrelevant message here ]
[16:21:45] Immy AIMS: The result once again you fail and you're disturbed, even more frustrated, even more eager to find the "solution. At this stage most of the traders give up. But some are not like that, some are like you, constantly learning and improving.  So you continue the search.
[16:23:36] Immy AIMS: Sadly for most, it could be years later that you find out, that even a system with a very small edge could make you money. Or may be you were lucky and you found a really good place where you learned the real answer. Such as iTradeAIMS.com such AIMS Stress Free Trading. (hehe)
but the problem is not "how to stop losing money" the problem is not, "how to stop making losing trades". the problem is not even how to make winning trades, neither it is how to find perfect entry, exit and money management plan.
[16:23:47] Immy AIMS: The problem is = How to be a consistently successful trader. And the answer to that is, Patience and Discipline. You then ask a question, "How to be disciplined". "How to make consistency part of your trading personality".
[16:23:59] Immy AIMS: and the answer to that is INSIDE YOUR MIND.
[16:24:12] Immy AIMS: The mind is the problem as much as it is the solution.
[16:24:22] fran87wonneberger: i agree on that 100%Immy

So this is what we discuss in our Skype Live Trading Group. 

By the way, if you're eager to know what is the answer to the above Question. You're lucky because we have written an eBook specifically to answer this question. Previously only available to AIMS Premium Members.

Get Your Hands on This Special eBook that will change your trading forever

Product Description

AIMS Stress Free Trading – Activating The Mind 
How to Trade Using The State of Mind “Knowing without Knowing How You Know”

After Reading this material you should be able to do the following:

• Objective 1. Understand How The Mind Works. Breakthrough the barriers of your mind.
• Objective 2. Understand the concept of Peak Performance and Trading in The Zone
• Objective 3. Practical Ways to apply to get you in The Zone. How to Perform at Peak Levels

12 Steps to Mind Power of a Master Trader

The 12 steps to acquire the mind power of a Master Trader is intended to acquire mind power of a master trader. It can help you achieve your goals of  improving your trading performance, hitting your trading goals effectively, getting more out of your trading time, increasing your wealth through consistently successful winning trading. You can also apply it to other parts of your life as well.

Step One: 

Choose a quiet place, which is free from all distraction, interruption or disturbance. This may even be inside a bus or in your own room. The idea is to be able to concentrate in any environment that you find is suitable. The ideal is to be able to concentrate in any environment that you find is suitable. The ideal time, however, I have found to be is, early in the morning or before going to bed. The ideal place however, may be anywhere as long as you can concentrate.

Step Two: 

Feel comfortable. Wear loose clothes or else loosen your belt and tie.

Step Three: 

Be comfortable. Keep your spine straight. Loosen your hands. Relax! This eases your body tension and helps your blood circulate efficiently.

Step Four: 

Close your eyes. That way your physical world does not interrupt you and you can concentrate on your mental world. But avoid quenching your eyes. Close them gently. In fact, once you focus on your images, you may find your eyes closing naturally.

Step Five: 

Breathe normally. Let your body roll with the rhythm of your breathing. Listen to that rhythm.

Step Six:

Now begin the process of visualization. Create the key images of the subject you have chosen. Form the shape. Add color. Build the sound. Sense them! Focus on them. See them as sharply and clearly as you can with your mind's eye.

Step Seven:

Put yourself in the images you have created. You must be inside the picture so as to let your subconscious mind know that the image you see that leads to your goal is actually meant for you, and not for anyone else.

Step Eight:

Feel the image you have created. Now that you are inside the picture imagine yourself to be leading
the time you see. Feel the environment. Watch how different it feels to lead a life that you had desired. Bring your images alive.

Step Nine:

Experience the images with all your emotions. See! Hear! Smell! Feel how it feels to have achieved your goals. Let the excitement and happiness of success flow through you. Let the thrill of success build in you. Feel your success.

Step Ten:

Once you have experienced your images with emotion, let your mind go blank. If you hold on to your images for too long, the images might disappear due to overexposure. So, let go of it.

Step Eleven:

Create a space in your mind to receive what you desire. Say to yourself that what you desire - like, "I am a consistently successful trader", "I am rich and famous." By doing this, you not only let your subconscious mind support the picture, you literally achieve your success.

Step Twelve:

Feel creative while creating the images.

These are the basic guidelines above to create visuals that will help you achieve your goals. You may change them accordingly to suit your needs. The more the images meet your specific needs, the more effective they will be.

The Universe likes Speed - Don't Delay Take Action Today 

Extra Tips and Tricks

These then are the twelve important steps to creating the mindset of a professional master trader.

Remember, it is better to visualize 2-3 times a day for a shorter duration than to visualize for a long stretch during the day. Doing this, the quality of visuals remain fresh instead of becoming stale and plaid and draining all energy out of you.

Steps one to ten might take you anything between 5-10 minutes. It is better if you do not prolong it. Instead, repeat it at another time of the day. I would not do one process for more than 10 minutes in one go. But I do several 2-10 minutes sessions during the day. But keep in mind, it does not have be a chore. If you don't have time or just don't want to do more than once a day its fine, its ok. Enjoy have fun with it.

When you release the images after this brief exercise, your mind will become free of the creative power you had activated. But your subconscious mind keeps on supporting the images and the little videos you had played in your mind. This helps your goal and your dreams to be a reality. This is the process of manifestation.

The Twelve Steps to Master Trader Mind Power is the most powerful tool in this world. Use it to improve your trading or anything else in your life. You can use it to attract your perfect soul mate, a hot girl friend or boyfriend. Use to attract that beautiful house or car into your life. There is no limit, the universe is abundant. When you switch on your mind power and extend it to creative visualization for turning your dreams into reality - then, that is exactly what will happen. Your dreams will become reality. "

Double Confirmation - How to Make Winning Trades - The Final Part 3

This is part 3 and final part of Double Confirming Your Trades.

... continued

Its very important to understand that Every Moment in the Universe, and so in the market as well, is UNIQUE.

Every moment in the market is unique

As a result of Understanding this information you will know that as long as you continue trading the same pattern using correct money management and following your exit plan accordingly every time, your account would grow more than it is drawn down at the end of 20 trades . That my friend is Trading.

Woohooo I hit a Winner

Notice that I did not put emphasis on your ability of hitting a single individual trade. Anyone can hit a winning trade once in a while. What makes you consistently successful is not your ability to hit a winning trade but it is your ability to consistently follow your trading plan.

The Ultimate Goal

The ultimate goal of a trade is not to hit a winning trade, or avoid the losing ones, but its is a psychologically challenging thing to achieve called Consistency. And consistency is not show in one day or two weeks. Consistency is shown for longer periods such as 3 to 6 months to start with. And consistency is an equation.

Consistency = Patience + Discipline. 

When you see a pattern you might think ok here we go again, the pattern is there the next trade is going to be a winner. But what follows the pattern, the entry pattern lets say, is a unique outcome. everytime. The outcome of a trade that was preceded by a certain pattern we call the Entry Setup is a unique event. The entry setup and the outcome of the trade are unique events. You've got to understand this.

A Very Important Fact to Understand and Fully Apply 

The probability of success is very high if you follow the system, but the probability of success per trade is never 100% it might be from 60% to 40% depending on what type of system you use.

What happens if you jump of Eiffel Tower?

You gotta understand this "Concept of Probability" as good as you understand that if you jump off Eiffel tower or Empire state building without a parachute two things will happen to you 100% guaranteed.

1. you know you will hit the ground.
2. you know that when you hit the ground there are 99.99% chances that you will die.

Trading can be stress free but not without understanding this concept

Without understanding this concept trading can be very stressful and a hard work because you will be "trying hard" to make money on each trade. You will be pushing "yourself" and trying very hard to make this next trade profitable. However the fact remains,  no matter how strong you crunch your tummy muscles, no matter how hard you bang your desk, no matter how closely you watch the chart, you cannot turn your next trade into a winner with 100% surety.

Be a Casino and let the players play their game. 

Enjoy your trading by "Believing in the system and that successful trading is a game of probabilities".

If You're like to learn about this concept and 3 Simple Rules about 3 Simple Indicators 
 Please JOIN TODAY
20% Discount on Premium Membership is Still On. 

Double Confirmation - How to make winning trades - Part 2

Yesterday I shared with you a discussion we had inside our AIMS Skype Live Trading Room. This is the second part of  that story.

Correct Mindset of a Trader:  

A trader with correct mindset will make a mediocre trading strategy look awesome but a trader with wrong mind set, will destroy a strategy with a very powerful edge.

In my previous post I said that Trading is 80% mental, 10% goes towards money management skills and strategies and the rest is divided as 5% for entries and 5% for exits.

However sadly, 95% of traders put 80% of their efforts towards the 5% of the equation in trading and that is The Entries.

The Perfect Entry:

They want to make perfect entries. They want to nail those entries that bring winners 100% of the time, double confirmation, quadruple confirmation. Something to put their mind at ease before entering the trade, something that say "this trade is going to be a winner". 

Being Wrong or Right

However I have bad news for those traders. Sadly that is not gonna happen. Because trading is not a game of perfection. It is certainly not a game of being wrong or right. Oh no.

You cannot manipulate things into your favour in the market. You cannot change the market not even a tiny bit. Trading is a game of probability.

The Self Similar Repetitive Pattern

You might have found a pattern in the markets and this might be a great thing for you. You'll be excited that now you will be able to better "predict" the market. But the reality is that all patterns have a certain "probability of success" attached to it. A certain pattern might give you an edge in the r form of 50% winners and 50% losers.

You may win lets say 60%  of the time or less using the same pattern, but the very same pattern that looked beautiful and produced 100 pips this time, that exact same pattern might appear again the next time still it may bring 15 pips loser.

A new trader is baffled, surprised and even shocked. S/He does not understand as to why this pattern did not work this time? The pattern might look exactly identical but its unique its never happened before.

What you see is an an identical patterns yet unique at the same time. Its not the same patterns they are are similar but at the same time unique. You might think you woke this morning with the same person that you went to bed with last night but not only did the person next to you change over night you have changed as well.

"Everything flows and nothing stays" 

"You Cannot Step in the Same River Twice" .... Heraclitus

... to be continued tomorrow  Final Part (Click Here)

Double Confirmation - How to make winning trades Part 1

Part 1. 

A good trading buddy commented about Double Confirmation or Additional Confirmation of a Trade Setup. It happened inside our Skype Live Trading Room.

Our friend said, "I found a new confirmation to get in Fruit, I shall trade it for a few weeks and let you know of the outcome"

 

My response was "What! What "New confirmation"?
He replied, "additional confirmation" and he said "it seems to be 70% in the right direction"

A Typical Trader's Mind Set

This is what a typical trader is after. "double confirmation" A way to predict the future. The question is, how can you confirm something that is just there in front you. And how can you find clue in the now that will confirm the future? When a new trader looks for confirmation he's actually looking for a confirmation that the trade will be a winner.

Lets e.g. you take a trade entry setup, e.g. A Fruit signal or an AIMS Stress Free Trading The Setup 1 entry signal, with all 3 rules checked and ticked off. How can you then tell that future will bring exactly what you want. That is the confirmation. The trade setup itself is the confirmation. What else can you add to it so that you can improve the rate of success? The more important question is do we really need to be right more time than we are wrong?

Is it going to be a winning trade?

So I said that if we look for additional Confirmations this would suggest that we have the mind set of novice traders who wants to "make sure that the next trade is a sure shot winner". Most traders don't possess what Mark Douglas calls Probabilistic Mind Set. And a big portion thinks they possess that mind set but in reality they don't yet fully understand it and so they are unable to apply it.

A beginner is always trying to hit that next winning trade. And this "need to know the future" is the biggest problem.

Keep it Simple - If it Ain't Broker Don't Fix it

I'd like to tell you one thing though no matter what anyone says, with whatever they can throw at me, I will NOT Add anything to my chart or change my technique. do you know why? Because it works. I don't need to change it, IT WORKS

What is Additional Confirmation?

What is additional "confirmation"? I don't like the concept behind confirmation because Nothing can confirm "the future" and tell you the outcome of a trade entry signal. Be it AIMS The Fruit Signal or any other signal or entry mechanism. Is there a way to know the future? If these concepts are new to you prepare yourself for a complete turn around of your thought process. This is what we teach and share with you inside AIMS Forum. Successful traders "Think Differently".

so I said, "You know that I don't give a s**t about how perfect the entry is? I place only 5% importance on entries?

The Mind 

Because Trading is 80% in the mind. 10% is MM (Money management and position sizing strategies) and 5% exit, that leaves 5% for entries. So its 20% science. (the strategy i.e. a system rules pertaining to making entries, managing trades and exiting the trades) and 80% Art.

AIMS is The Art of Trading Chaos!

.... to be continued tomorrow (Click here to Read the Next Part)

How to Trade Like Neo from The Matrix

How to Trade Like Neo? Well, to trade like Neo you have to See the Market for What IT IS. You have to see the "Reality" of it and break through the "Illusion". To find out What Creates the illusion, where is the illusion and what is the Illusion read on. 

There are so many opportunities to make money in the market. Why are we not all making loads of money and going crazy? 

(This article is created from Chat Messages from our Live Skype Trading Room Today)

I know why, because most of us are afraid. We are scared of trading. And on the flip side of the coin there are traders who are completely reckless. You cannot see trading success, consistent trading success until you achieve a certain state of mind that allows you to hit your "Peak Performance".

The next time you take a trade try this.
As soon as you've entered a trade watch yourself, observer if you are stressed, observe if there is any feeling in your tummy, or if you're tense and there is tension in your muscles, are you crunching your tummy, are your shoulders relaxed or tight. The moment you bring your attention to your body you will feel it. Now take a deep breath and allow your muscles to relax. and say this aloud

" I don't care if its a winner or loser I just want to follow my rules."

Do you feel betrayed or angry at the market when it goes against you?

If you do, and I know most of us experience those feelings, let me ask you a question. Do You feel the same way when you toss a coin? You called heads but its tails,do you feel betrayed by the coin? If you are playing a slot machine and time and time again you don't get what you want do you feel betrayed by the machine? I'm sure your answer is absolutely not.

When the pattern shows up, e.g. S1 Setup, you have to take it just like you're willing to flip a coin. "trading a technical pattern like ours has nothing to do with being right and wrong, this is not a right or wrong game" its just an odds game. Trading a technical pattern is exactly that. It gives you odds in your favour but not per "attempt" or "trade".

Odds in your favour, what does it mean?

And the odds in your favour are not per trade. You have to understand this, that you have odds in your favour over a series of trades not per trade.

A Setup is a Setup is a Setup

Traders often mistakenly think that when the "pattern" e.g. The Setup 1 presents itself that they get odds in their favour which means "I will win the next trade because its a GOOD Setup". The reality is that Setup 1 or any other pattern, The Fruit or Seed, Trend lines or whatever repetitive pattern you've found in the market is just that, a pattern that repeats itself. A pattern is a pattern. It does not give you an edge in terms of your ability to win this particular trade or your next one. However it does give you a edge , it gives you odds in your favour in terms of your total winnings be more than your total losses. It means that at the end of a series of trades your overall balance will be positive. But this largely depends on your ability to stick to the plan. You cannot count trading mistakes, which means not following your rules, in this series of trades.

How sure am I if I will win my next trade?

Traders often mistakenly believe that their method is telling them that the next trade will be a winner that their method is telling them what's going to happen next? I cannot guarantee that, i cannot even have any idea so that I could tell at all, whether my next trade will be a winner or a loser. I can say with certainty that if you follow this pattern at the end of 20 or 50 trades your overall winnings will be more than you've lost. This is Trading. Trading is a pattern recognition numbers game.

Its Easy to Trade, Its easy even to find a good winner, everyone finds a winner every now and then, however its not easy to make consistent gains unless you've addressed the mind issue which is "Fear of Trading". Unless you've understood the fundamental fact about trading. Trading is an odds game and you have to play by the rules. Unfortunately our fears in our minds always block our way towards consistent success.

AIMS Stress Free Trading - Activating The Zone
If you're scared, if you're not making money, you've got to get this eBook. Previously only available to Premium Members inside AIMS Forum now available to download right now.

2 Ways to Deal with Fear and Greed

We follow a statistically proven edge. It really does not matter how many trades you lose. What matters is how many winning trades you let run. Any system that relies on higher %age win will eventually fail. That is because the probability of any Technical Study, Setup in the "long run" is only 50%. When we trade any setup we have 50% chance of Success. So how do we make money?

We make money by minimising our negative trades and milking the winning trades. But unfortunately the human nature of "Survival Mechanism" back fires in trading environment. It is responsible for keeping us safe and alive on this planet or the universe but sadly in trading it does the opposite.

Thoughts/Feelings of Hope Mechanism: 
When we trade a setup and market moves the opposite way, our mind starts using a Feeling that is very useful and vital to our "Psychological and Emotional Health". The "Hoping  Mechanism" activates thoughts of Staying Positive, Expect the Best, Its all going to be fine, Its going to turn around,". These thoughts and feelings are not required at this stage.

The Fear Mechanism: 

This is mechanism is in our left brain. We undergo this phase just before getting in to a trade. It activates when we sense there is an opportunity. The mind interprets this as a danger. It does so by retrieving information from its database matching it with similar "past occurrences".

It activates thoughts of,  "What if its a loser?, I don't want to have another loser, I've had too many losers, Is it going to work? The system is not working and don't know what to do? The last time I traded around 3pm it went the other way? I don't know what's going to happen?

The left brain is the concious part of our brain. Unfortunately it hates "unpredictability". It cannot deal with situations where the outcome is uncertain or low probability. Since 50% is not a high probability occurrence we feel this uneasy, unpleasant situation.

When in Profit it activates, " Protect your gains before they vanish" , "What if it turns around and you end up losing  and give back all this profit", "best to take the most out of it" " have enough profit now lets bail".
This list is just the beginning. it comes in many forms and manifestations.

If we let the human survival mechanism take charge and let it run on Auto we are going to end up where the rest of the 95% traders end up. This is counter productive in trading.

What do we do? How do we get rid or at least press the "Pause" button for our Survival Mechanism while we trade. 

We certainly cannot afford to get rid of this system entirely. Because our ordinary life depends on this but  not so much in this modern world. This discussion is beyond the scope of this post.

The answer is to do exactly the opposite. 

When in a trade that goes the other way, we exit quick and when in a  trade that makes profit let it run.

How to achieve this: 
We would use our minds internal mechanism by learning to activate responses manually. Dont let your mind;/brain run on Auto. Take charge. This is what Stephen R Covey calls  Habit 1"Be Proactive.".

Choose your response. He also puts it nicely like this,

"Between Stimulus and Response is your Freedom to Choose" ....Stephen R Covey.

How do we do that? 

When in a trade and price does not breakout properly and is approaching your exit point, reject the hoping and pampering thoughts. You cannot reject a feeling without replacing it with another. Remember you must have at least one feeling/thought at a given moment. So we accept Fear. Use fear to your advantage. Get scared and exit according to your exit signal. The predefined exit point you chose before entry or if it has changed during the progression of the trade then follow that exit spot.

Brave people do not have fear? Absolutely wrong. They know how to deal with Fear. Its like saying that a black smith is not scared of Fire. Or a soldier is not scared of death or a bullet. Oh yes he is. He is, more than we are. Because he knows alot more about it than us. But he knows how to deal with it.

So learn to deal with your fear. and then use it to your advantage. So DO NOT BE BRAVE when price says EXIT HERE with LOSS. Be Brave to Accept Fear and get out.

On the contrary when price goes your way Reject the Fear and in place of Fear Activate/Accept the Hope Mechanism. Let it run and hope for the best. and when the system generates an exit signal that means  Exit with Profit then Exit immediately.

Here is another treat for you.

As soon as you are about to exit with profit the left brain does its final "what it thinks is a favour to you" Trick. It does that by presenting to you the "Hope Mechanism" one more time. It says stay in a bit longer its going fine. Remember last time, you exited to soon. What if it continues. Reject that and accept the system generated exit signal.  By not following this profit taking exit signal your actions are motivated with "Greed".

It is evident that we cannot get rid of  feelings of "Fear, Greed, Fearlessness or Bravado, and Hope". These are parts of our structure. These things are a Fact and they will not cease to exist as long as the human mind  exist.  Our job is to learn to use them appropriately, not to get rid of them.

The best way to achieve the following is to exercise the power of "Staying in the Now".  More on this in the book below...

Trade what you See not what you Think.

Want What the Market Wants 

Get Our Unique and Updated Book on How to Get into The Zone

AIMS Stress Free Trading - Activating The Zone

6 Practical Ways to Be More Peaceful this New Year 2015

Why not find inner peace this new year 2015? – 6 Practical Ways to Be More Peaceful

1. Let go of the need to interpret the actions of others. 

This is my favorite tip for finding inner peace: stop trying to decipher what others meant when they did this or said that! This need to figure out what people really meant by their words or actions will drive you to distraction — and not to mention the effect it has on others. I need to take this tip a step further, and let go of my habit of ruminating on what I said to others and what they think of me. Finding inner peace is about accepting yourself and others for who you and they are.

2. Replace worry with freedom.

Worrying about the future and things we can’t control (or even things we can control) isn’t any way to be more peaceful. Worry may be natural to us as human beings, but it’s unnatural to us as spiritual beings. Whether or not you have faith in God, find ways to release worry, anxiety, fear, and doubt. Prayer and meditation helps you find inner peace by reminding you that life is more than the things you worry about.

3. Accept – and even enjoy - every moment in life. 

A key to finding inner peace is to learn to flow with events and people instead of fighting them. Flowing with even the most difficult moments in life involves not taking things so seriously, letting go of critical or negative thoughts, accepting that there is no one right way for life to unfold, and believing in yourself.

4. Avoid toxic or negative energy. 

Do you know someone who likes to pick fights, or who sees flaws and weaknesses everywhere? Are you that person — perhaps an emotional vampire? Instead of finding fault or being critical of who and what you see, practice seeing things and people without judging them. Be child-like, and see things as they are.

5. Connect to the hearts and souls of other people. 

The more love you give and receive, the more connected you feel…and the more inner peace you’ll find. To connect with others, initiate heart-to-heart conversations. Ask people what they think and how they feel – and listen to their answers. Spend time in nature, even if it’s in the arboretum in your office building at lunch!

6. Act spontaneously – and don’t be paralyzed by fears from the past. 

I love this tip for finding inner peace: don’t let the past stop you from being authentic and real right now. Dr Wayne Dyer calls your past “the wake”, and says it can’t pull you forward…it can only hold you back. Of course you need to deal with problems from your past, but you can’t let those problems paralyze you. Instead, follow your intuition and act spontaneously in the moment.

And, one last way to be more peaceful in this world…

We wish you a Happy, Prosperous and Peaceful Year

How To Get Motivated and STAY Motivated

The internet and tech boom today has created unlimited money making opportunities for all sorts of people who can now enjoy trading like the professional, some starting with zero or limited knowledge soaring to success in making money from trading. There is a good number of retail brokers today offering genuine pro like trading opportunities. 

But why does only a handful succeed while the majority jump from system to system without success?

The missing link according to some of the pro and semi pro traders is in personal development, the motivation to identify, set and to systemically follow up your goals.

It's said that everyday we choose what to do with our time. And that every little action that we are involved in, will produce results, whether desirable or otherwise. However, this is not news for most of the people who have been and are still trying to get out of the rat race by investing their time and money in businesses.

Most of us have been to seminars, have taken notes and have books and audios by the 'gurus' of self-improvement, all this without any long lasting favored outcomes. And we keep stacking up more ad more of the personal development materials as we continue to 'buy hope' that one day we will find the right program for us. 

We also look for that trading strategy, a forex robot, or a black box system which promises us all the right ingredients, the right tools, support and a chance to make a quick buck without lifting a finger. And then it all happens again. Nothing works and we jump to another 'ground floor' system or den of a new guru. 

So what is missing here, what happens to the inspirational buzz we get when we attend a motivational seminar? The possibilities, the vision we attain when we listen to that goal setting CD. Why procrastinating again?

Well, I will tell you what is missing. 

The one ingredient, the catalyst that you must have if you are to succeed is a daily dose of continuous motivation to enable you to consistently replenish your inspiration and vision.

For beginners it is important that you get this daily dose until you become disciplined or habituated enough to go on an autopilot. The only challenge is; this continuous kick on the back side does not come cheap.

However, there are ways to achieve this daily dose without coasting you an arm and a leg. You can have a coach who will give you a weekly coaching session and get a friend to do the daily butt kicking. The 'best' friend to do this for you is the loud mouthed one, who can embarrass you in front of everyone if you haven't done what you said you would do. If you join AIMS Forum as a premium member you might experience some light butt kicking from time to time but only if you're a naughty boy/gal. 

Another way is to have a personal improvement program which is monitored by a group of people who have one goal in common. This way everybody mentors and inspire everybody else.  This 'co-mentoring' can became unbelievably effective if there is an appropriate platform for this co-mentoring to happen. This is Exactly why we put so much emphasis on Joining our Members only Friendly, Loving and Caring Trading Community residing inside the walls of AIMSForum.com. Our forum is our haven, our den, our personal development centre and a cyber pub. 

So Hurry and Join this group of loving traders who share a common goal. 

We welcome you whole heartedly and we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year