4 Steps to Increase Discipline and Self-Control in Trading

Where do you consider yourself in the overall market scenario?

At any given point in time, the market gets affected by thousands of variables. There is a lot of information coming in every moment from sources like economic news releases, as well as traders who are sharing their opinions about the market. One cannot have control over such a huge amount of data and it is manually impossible to understand all of it at a time. Analysing these factors and trading according to them is quite an impossible thing. The only way by which you can trade into the market is by analysing the behaviour of the price. A technique used to study the behaviour of the price is called price action.

You need to understand that there are thousands of traders competing with each other and everyone wants to be profitable. You cannot control the market and your competitors in it. Trying to control them is of no use as they don’t know and care about you. That is why a stock market is a place where you will be rewarded when you are right and you will be punished when you go against the market.

While trading, our primary focus should be to execute our trading plan with an edge and try to maintain the discipline as much as we can. Remember you are only responsible for your profits as well as your losses so have self-control in trading and don’t waste your time and energy controlling the things which are not controllable.

• Out of all other things, there is only one thing in the market that traders have under their control, that is themselves.

We as human beings are really bad at maintaining self-discipline and self-control as these are the most difficult things to control. As it is difficult to control themselves, they tend to control others, this makes them feel better and gives them a sense of authority. The same takes place in trading. But instead of controlling another person, they try to control the market which is not possible and can do much more harm to their trading account.

While trading, traders have the fear of losing money, and when they start to lose money, they start to control the market by over-trading or by risking off more money or by moving their targets and stop-losses, etc. By doing all these things they thought that they have controlled the markets but as soon as the market moves against their expectation, they get frustrated.

• “Fail to plan or you are planning to fail”

The first step to avoid trying to control the market is to know whether you are actually doing it. If you are losing money, that might be one sign of you trying to control the market. This article will help you figure this out in more detail. To become a profitable trader, you have to be in control of yourself rather than trying to control the market.

The Next step is you have to make your trading plan when you are not in front of the charts or not in a live trade. Once you make your trading plan it will help you to stay disciplined and in control of yourself. Every trader needs to make the trading plan evetime so that he/she does not do any stupid things while taking a trade because as we discussed earlier market does not care about you and if you go against the market then it will definitely punish you.

• Things that we can self-control in trading. Now we will discuss the things that the trader has actual control of.

1. Entry, Target, and Stop-loss– Irrespective of whatever market does, you can definitely plan your entry point, your target levels, and your stop-loss levels.
2. Risk management – You can manage the risk of your trade by proper position sizing and by maintaining a good risk to reward ratio.
3. Your psychology – You can develop your trading psychology by understanding how markets work and learning about the markets every day.
4. Trading plan – last but not least, you can control yourself by making a detailed plan and execute it with your trading edge and discipline.

Key takeaways-

When we discuss controlling yourself during trading, we are actually discussing the reason because of which most traders lose money. So, in this ocean of opportunities, you have to decide whether you are going to be self-controlled and try to trade with a plan or you are going to try to control the markets by risking off more money. You have to figure this out sooner because you can’t afford to lose your hard-earned money again and again.

In my Booming Bulls Elite Traders Mentorship Program, I have a complete trading plan template that will help you develop your psychology and it will also help you to practice self-control. But whatever you do, always remember one thing: The more you focus on controlling yourself, the more you will see your trading performance improve.

If you want to know more about Risk Management & Intraday Trading Strategies you can refer to our previous blog on

Importance Of Risk Management In Trading and 10 Best Intraday Trading Strategies.

Open a Demat Account using our link to get support from us – https://bit.ly/3gyhIWN and send your ID to [email protected]

Happy Learning!