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Mark Douglas is a trading psychology visionary. Recently I started to dive into his book, “The Disciplined Trader”. One of the most eye opening topics he covers is the ability to identify typical trading errors and then acquiring the necessary skills behind success: According to Douglas, there are 10 typical trading errors that have a specific cause rooted in a thinking methodology that can be changed. The most important thing to recognize here is that each of the following 10 thoughts that hold a trader back can be rewired & changed: 1. Refusing to define a loss. 2. Not liquidating a losing trade, even after you have acknowledged the trade’s potential is greatly diminished. 3. Getting locked into a specific opinion or belief about market direction. From a psychological perspective this is equivalent to trying to control the market with your expectation of what it will do: “I’m right, the market is wrong.” 4. Focusing on price and the monetary value of a trade, instead of the potential for the market to move based on its behavior and structure. 5. Revenge-trading as if you were trying to get back at the market for what it took away from you. 6. Not reversing your position even when you clearly sense a change in market direction. 7. Not following the rules of the trading system. 8. Planning for a move or feeling one building, but then finding yourself immobilized to hit the bid or offer, and therefore denying yourself the opportunity to profit. 9. Not acting on your instincts or intuition. 10. Establishing a consistent pattern of trading success over a period of time, and then giving your winnings back to the market in one or two trades and starting the cycle over again. If I take an honest look at myself, there are definitely similar thought processes that I currently have which match the thinking of some of the 9 points above. This is a positive because it shows I have room to grow. Here are 9 skills to acquire to rid yourself of these mental mistakes, according to Douglas: 1. Learning the dynamics of goal achievement so you can stay positively focused on what you want—not what you fear. 2. Learning how to recognize the skills you need to progress as a trader and then stay focused on the development of those skills, instead of money, which is merely a by-product of your skills. 3. Learning how to adapt yourself to respond to fundamental changes in market conditions more readily. 4. Identifying the amount of risk you are comfortable with—your “risk comfort level” —and then learn how to expand it in a way that is consistent with your ability to maintain an objective perspective of market activity. 5. Learning how to execute your trades immediately upon your perception of an opportunity. 6. Learning how to let the market tell you how much is enough, instead of assessing the potential from your personal value system of how much is enough. 7. Learning how to structure your beliefs to control your perception of market movement. 8. Learning how to achieve and maintain a state of objectivity. 9. Learning how to recognize “true” intuitive information and then learning how to act on it consistently. I’m so impressed with Douglas’ work because he takes incredibly complex trading topics and breaks them down into actionable tasks to get better. I know that if I focus on mastering & implementing the above 9 mental thought processes, my trading will get exponentially better. And, one of the best parts about the market is the more skilled you are, the more money you make. Focusing on the mental skill will be my next leap as a trader.