If you've done the necessary preparation, the only reason the anxiety persists is that you're imagining an unsuccessful conclusion of the event. This became manifest to me in the case of a professional singer who came to me to resolve a problem. He was missing high notes in his performances as a church soloist. I asked him what he thought about before the service. "Well," he said, "I imagine missing the B flat and afterwards nobody will look at me because they feel sorry for me." Of course, he missed the B flat! He was giving himself vivid suggestions for failure; he was imagining the unsuccessful conclusion of the event.

The same thing happens with the trader who can't pull the trigger. She's imagining all the ways the trade could go wrong. And we know that when imagination and will power are in conflict, the imagination wins every time. If she's imagining loss, she won't take the trade.  All, the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't get her to put on the trade. She's intensely conceiving loss. Furthermore, she's looking for reasons-and there are always reasons-not to take the trade because she doesn't want the discomfort of being in the trade as she expects loss or the pain of actually losing.

I suggested to one client who was having difficulty taking every signal that he imagine a winning result to each trade as soon as he gets the signal to take the trade. "Just imagine," I said, "the trade going in the direction of the probabilities."  He responded, "Oh, Ruth, then I'll feel so disappointed when I do lose!" "Well," I said, "do you want to feel bad both before and after the trade?"

Disappointment, or the fear of it, keeps many people from expecting success. The problem here is that we need to anticipate success in order to succeed. Can you imagine what would happen if a professional athlete expected to fail? Such a thought just never crosses the mind of a truly good athlete. An outstanding athlete operates "in the zone" fully anticipating his own flawless performance.

In his new book, “Trading in the Zone”, Mark Douglas convincingly and clearly outlines a basic trinity of attitudes necessary to be a successful trader.  A trader needs to accept loss. A trader needs to accept the total uncertainty of the results of the next trade (or any given trade). A trader needs to think in terms of over all probabilities.