OVER the past one year, I felt like I have grown to becoming more of an adult, or I should say that I realised I am no longer a kid and needs to start behaving and thinking as how an adult should. This comes with its fair share of challenges - being committed and discipline, admitting my mistakes and certainly being patient.
ONE of the things that has pushed me to improve - Trading. I mean Forex Trading, where I do only Gold/USD pairing. As advised by senior traders and my sub-mentor @Salim, when I wanna be good in Trading, I gotta be doing the right things in life. It is just like everything that we do in life, day in day out our habits reflect our decision-making and hence the karma (result) that comes with it.
OVER the past few days, I have been making home-cooked meals for dinner.
While I am cooking and then having my dinner, I find that cooking is very much like trading. How so?
1. Patience is being tested:
When cooking, say a piece of salmon, I have to wait for one side to be cooked thoroughly before flipping to the other side. While I fight the urge of flipping too early or too often - knowing well that doing so may result in less-than-satisfactory salmon, what I can do is wait and see. True enough, my patience is being rewarded with a piece of nicely grilled salmon.
IN Trading, my patience is being tested every day, every hour, every minute, every second. With every price action, there comes a decision-making moment, like @SenseiOrange said a Myvi-moment where on every click of a button decides whether we make a Myvi or don't.
More of than not, I find that being patient - whether in terms of analysing the chart, writing my journal, following my journal, and having the price action locks certain threshold, produces the best and most satisfactory result for my trading account i.e. Positive Pips.
2. Consistency is the key:
Every cook would say the same, experience does matter when it comes to cooking. Have you ever observe how moms cook? Most of the time, moms can just sort of eye-ball the amount of ingredients - be it salt, sugar, oil, pepper, water, and still be able to cook our favourite dish just the way we love it. Mom's the best, I know 💕. It is by being consistent - making time to cook, repeatedly cooking that same dish, and finally be sticking on with the recipe once we have found the taste, that conjures the kind of magical dish up.
What I learnt is that Trading is a skill, much like cooking, and to master a skill requires consistent practice. Think of it like muscle memory when playing a guitar. When we can be consistent, our growth will climb up gradually and hit a peak. 10,000 hours may seem to be a tough dedication, but when we are able to be known as the master in Trading which allows us to make a year's worth of salary in one day (click), what bout that 10,000?
3. Decision-making, and taking the hit when matters:
Sure, most people would say food taste best when we cook ourselves. Perhaps that is just the triumphant feeling of an achievement unlocked - first-time dish, improved recipe, or just managing the rice cooker for the first time. Nonetheless, everything has its first and when it comes to cooking, a few try-and-errors are necessary in order to produce that yummy dish. We make decisions - how much salt to add for example, and must somehow finish whatever we have cooked up no matter how the dish ended up. Because we have made the decision and it is for us to swallow up and pull through, else how are we gonna know what to improve or stick on?
Similarly with Trading, there are some try-and-errors and we have to stick up to our decisions once we have entered a trade, or to cut the trade when price goes the other direction. There are also decisions made prior to entering a trade - where the classic case of to follow or not to follow our journal? To make mistake is only human, and to be able to stand up from the fall makes us a better person. Learn from it and never repeat.
I have gone through numerous ups and downs when cooking and Trading, and to be able to stand 'til the end makes the winner in me.
Cheers to being a better person, and a champion Trader.
