Posted: July 12, 2009 | Categories: Steve Rising's Trading Success Series
Hi, this is Steve Rising with the Forex Trading Institute. I see very often a common scenario when individuals decide that they want to learn how to become Forex traders is they approach learning how to trade as if they're looking to take a course in school with the idea that they can simply read a couple of books, watch a set of DVD's, sit in a class that's for 6 hours or one day or two days, memorize all the information and then be able to go and successfully trade day in and day out by taking this one quick course. When in fact, statistically it's shown, whenever we go through any type of a learning process, when we're first exposed to that information we retain less than 15% of the information.
Learning To Be A Successful Forex Trader
The reality is learning to become a successful or consistent trader is very much like learning to become a consistent athlete or pursuing a sports endeavour, like for instance the game of golf or tennis, or like playing a musical instrument. We need to do things repeatedly over a period of time so that we can create new muscle memory; so that we can move information from short term memory to long term memory. And so in order for that process to happen, we need to create new neural pathways. They say it takes a minimum of six weeks to learn a new habit, and that's why i say it takes about six weeks for individuals who come through our doors to start to be able to consistently trade with a small amount of capital.
And the reason for this is we have really two types of learning. There's known as information learning, and transformational learning. Now information learning is really our comfort zone; it's what we're used to. It's what we did in school. This type of learning is predominant in our school system.
We're used to the teacher talking, we listen, take notes, we take tests, we get a grade, and so on. It's all about memorizing the information so that we can regurgitate it back and get an A+ when we take a test. Afterwards, a week, two weeks, three weeks on down the road, how well we're going to retain that information, and more importantly, how well we can apply that information in real world scenarios; it becomes a whole different situation. And that's what's so important to understand about learning how to trade, and it's one of the reasons why we offer unlimited access to our training process is because it takes time to condition ourselves repeatedly, and more importantly we need to be exposed to different market conditions over time so that we can start to understand it.
There are actually two styles of learning. There's what's known as book learning, and learning by doing. And in fact learning by doing takes a little longer, but it really is where we're able to apply and implement information in a real world scenario on a day to day basis and become successful by applying that information. It's what's known as transformational learning.
Transformational learning is about empowerment. It's a slower process, it takes a little longer, but much more profound, because we're transforming. And it's important to understand that; we live in an age of too much information and not enough transformation. When people get stuck, it's rarely because they don't know enough, it's because they lack the ability to act on what they already know. In other words, often times I see people, especially individuals who are looking at trading, they're information junkies. They're constantly gathering all this information, but in order for them to act on that information in a real time real world market in a real time trading environment, it becomes very difficult for them.
A lot of emotion and anxiety comes into play because they're not sure what to apply, when to apply it, and how to correctly apply it over time. You know it's interesting because the reality is we learn more from our mistakes than from our successes, and often times we fear making mistakes because we're so engrained in the informational learning process, when we shift our paradigm and we become transformational learners, we understand that those mistakes are critical in the learning curve.
How Coaching Improves Your Forex Trading
So transformational learning is not about taking notes in a notebook. It's about living it and doing it, it's about learning in a real time, real world environment. That's why having external feedback, or coaching or mentoring, is so critical when becoming or wanting to become a consistent trader. it's about writing the lessons in every cell of your body, so that your behavior then flows effortlessly and without compulsion. When we look at athletes who practice day in and day out, we look at people who are at their peak, the Michael Jordans, the Tiger Woods of the world, they embrace the process of practice, so that then when they're playing the game, it's intuitive, it's natural, they have muscle memory, they have the correct neural pathways to know how to react and move in all sorts of different conditions.
And learning how to trade is very similar. We have to understand what are good market conditions and what are poor market conditions; what's a higher probability scenario? What's a better trading setup? The main goal of transformational learning is to cause you to experience what are known as "Aha!" moments. An "Aha!" moment is when your awareness expands; when you "get it." We typically learn best from these "Aha!" moments when we make mistakes a few times, then ultimately we go back once again repeatedly, we then attempt it again, we do it right, and more importantly, we have some assist us to identify what we were doing wrong and what we were doing right, so then we can move forward and repeat the things correctly. The lights go on, you say to yourself, "Aha!"
And so it's important to understand that becoming a solid trader requires this transformation. And so that's why once again it takes about six to eight weeks to really start to become consistent. I see it time and time again where folks will spend solid dollars to attend a one day class or a two day class or purchase a set of DVD's, and they try to memorize that information, and then they're lost when they go into the real world because it's not the same thing. The setups, the conditions, things are different because market's moving. So this type of learning takes longer, because we have to live it over time to condition ourselves to see things from a new perspective.
Transformational learning will transform you into a solid, consistent trader over time. So start now by looking for those "Aha!" moments, and that's why it's critical to go out and get good solid trading rules to work off of, and then have someone train you and show you how to correctly apply those rules in a real time, real world condition in an ongoing basis.
So to learn more about transformational learning, and about our trading methodology, and about our unlimited training process, I encourage you to attend one of our free online trading seminars that we host weekly.
This is Steve Rising, and I'm outta here.
