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What You See is What You Get: The Power of Visualization
Written by article default Tuesday, 14 December 2010 04:18
The snug earphones provided a soothing auditory backdrop to Kathy's process. She was just sitting there in the quiet of her trading office with her back straight and her feet flat on the floor. To anyone passing her door, she would appear to be doing nothing; but inside her head, she was deep into a trade. It was the NQ E-mini. She saw herself creating her trade plan from several time frame chart analyses; identifying supply and demand zones along with resistance and support. She then imagined following her plan without deviation while hearing herself declare, "I plan my trade and trade my plan." She even saw herself come up against a common issue that had been a negative behavior pattern for her. This negative pattern consisted of moving her stop as soon as the price action came close to her entry and threatened to take her out of the trade. In the past, she would have given in to the fear and anxiety by violating her stop rule. However, in her mind, she was taking a deep breath and allowing the price action to do what it was going to do while realizing the importance of sitting with the discomfort. In her mind, she heard herself say, "...I am a powerful trader and I wait patiently for the trade to play out." She also knew that when she endured the urge to violate that or any rule, she would not only have a private victory, she would build greater capacity for strength and endurance across the board for her trading, and especially when she was met with this particular issue. Kathy also envisioned herself being relaxed, regardless of what the outcome of the trade was, because she knew that the most important aspect of her trade was that she follow her plan and her rules explicitly, not whether or not she made a profit. The profits, she told herself, will come consistently as a function of mastering the process of my rule-based protocols and aiming to remain self-aware while skill-building. After she saw her target being met in her imagination, she opened her eyes and mentally came back into the room, feeling confident, relaxed and completely tuned into the zone of her "A" Game. She was now ready to trade in real time.In the foregoing example, Kathy was "future pacing;" that is, she was using her mind deliberately and by design to positively impact upon her trading results. She was using a V-A-K created experience where V = visual, A = auditory and K = kinesthetic (in your body) feelings and emotional feelings that were designed to be proactive and preemptive in effectively dealing with her rule violation issues. She was proactive by using a mind tool (visualization) to address an issue that had been uncovered in her trading. And, she was being preemptive by neutralizing that issue before it had a chance to throw a monkey wrench into her execution. Another phrase for this process is called "mental rehearsal." The term mental rehearsal describes how you can use the "frontal lobe" of your brain (the executive part of your brain that oversees high level thinking) for making changes to your behavior. When you rehearse you have an intention about how you want to demonstrate or perform in any given task. It's not just running through the motions; it's a replication of the actual performance...as in a play. In this case, mental rehearsal and the actual doing are one and the same. Each time that you engage in the performance in your imagination with specific attention to detail and engaging yourself with a full investment of mental and emotional energy along with a down to business attitude, you will get more proficient in the effort. This is why people rehearse, so that they can get better and so that the next time they are in a performance in real time, it becomes easier to get the outcome that they want.
Mental rehearsal, in other words, is remembering what you want to express and then experiencing in your thoughts what it is like to physically do it, step-by-step. It is mentally seeing your "self" physically demonstrate or practice a skill. As we consider personal change and reprogramming negative patterns, mental rehearsal is conceiving of yourself in a situation (imagining a future reality), and doing a behavior like a trade differently; that is, in exactly the way that is going to ensure the results that you want. This behavior is instead of allowing negative, victim oriented thoughts, emotions and behavior to cause you to experience the same loss scenarios over and over again.
The power in visualization and mental rehearsal also lies in the fact that you are changing your brain just by thinking and feeling. You are creating a new level of mind without doing anything physical other than thinking. This process tool also helps you to align your body, mind and emotions to work in the same direction and on the same goal; and it gets better with practice. Your "A" Game is dependent on your being aligned in order for you to be able to focus on what matters most when you are in the trade. When you create consistency through your visualization and mental rehearsal, you are also developing capacity for strength and endurance. This strength and endurance is necessary when you are in the heat of the trade and you come face-to-face with emotions like anxiety, fear, greed, and anger; you can feel the discomfort associated with the pattern, and rather than capitulate by behaving by default, you can exercise the option of behaving differently...by design.
Mastering your mental game is about having your "A" Game and all of your tools, techniques and weaponry available and ready to use in the trading trenches. With visualization and mental rehearsal, you'll want to create an ideal in your head of what you want to rehearse, the V-A-K specifics. You also have to ask the right kind of introspective questions. Who do I want to be in my trading? What do I have to change about myself in order to get there? What resources can I find to help me develop this working model in my mind? This and other "A" Game tools are what we teach in Mastering the Mental Game Online, On-location and Extended Learning Track (XLT) courses. Ask your Online Trading Academy Education Counselor for more information.