TRADING PSYCHOLOGY
Staying Flexible To Handle Change
Shrinking From Opportunity
by Adrienne Laris Toghraie
Stretch your comfort zone of predictable patterns and look for your
shot at the gold ring.
Opportunity is all around us. True, occasionally
it is a challenge to locate it, when conditions have changed or supply
has temporarily shrunk and the competition for finite resources has increased.
But even in the worst of circumstances, opportunity is always there. Since
a trader's success depends upon finding opportunities and taking advantage
of them, a serious problem exists if he or she loses the ability to identify
and pursue opportunity.
RECOGNIZING OPPORTUNITY
As time passes, traders often shrink from opportunity. The main reason
is that people tend to dislike change. When we are younger, change is frequently
linked to fun, excitement, and reward. However, over time, we eventually
experience enough pain through change that we come to associate change
with pain rather than opportunity. As we age, our brains work harder to
keep us in an increasingly smaller comfort zone while protecting us from
change and the possible opportunities or pain that come with it.
...Continued in the October 2003 issue of Technical Analysis
of STOCKS & COMMODITIES
Excerpted from an article originally published in the October 2003
issue of Technical Analysis of STOCKS & COMMODITIES magazine. All rights
reserved. © Copyright 2003, Technical Analysis, Inc.
