I have taken the following excerpt from my book ‘Trading in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition’.  Have a read of it and then watch my video below.  I am interested to hear how other people approach this, so please leave any comments below.

Ultra Comfort

I recall a question I received several years ago during a presentation that I made to a large group of traders and it was about comfort.  I had just stated that two feelings that you should consciously experience often are confidence and comfort.

Confidence in your own approach, your plan and your implementation of that plan, and comfort in the way you feel about your whole approach and with the level of risk you are taking with your trades.

These comments were on the back of me stating how all of the actions required for successful trading go against our natural human instincts and tendencies.  Therefore, the question was raised how we can be comfortable when we carry out these actions, as they generally cause a level of discomfort for most people.

For example, cutting a losing trade quickly and denying yourself the opportunity to break even in the trade goes against our natural tendencies and is an uncomfortable experience for many traders.  Yet, we have to do it.

This presents the challenge of how we can routinely make decisions that make most people naturally uncomfortable yet feel comfortable doing it.  I call this feeling ‘ultra comfort’.

Ultra comfort is a level of competence whereby you feel a sense of well-being and contentment on a regular basis with your decisions, however you are routinely making decisions that make most traders terribly uncomfortable – so uncomfortable, that they often drift away and end up deciding based on what will make them feel most comfortable instead.  This will often result in a poor trading decision and this same notion was introduced a little earlier in this chapter under discipline.

The aim for you should be to attain a level of competence and humility where you have a level of ultra comfort and just make decisions without hesitation even though they go against your natural instincts – this is what consistently profitable traders do.