“The possibilities of thought training are infinite, its consequences eternal, and yet few take the pains to direct their thinking into channels that will do the good, but instead leave all to chance.” Brice Marden

Your mind is a powerhouse of possibility. We can do mentally what often eludes us in reality. If you can’t trade consistently in real life, you can do it in your imagination. Without the surprises and the tension of real life trading, without risk entering the equation, you can learn to follow your rules in your mind. In this way you create an experience that you can later rely upon in actual trading.

Some years ago there was a well known and documented experiment conducted by psychologist Alan Richardson. A group of student basketball players was divided into three groups and tested as to their ability to throw a basketball into a basket. One group was instructed to practice every day for a month. Another group was told to imagine throwing balls into the basket for thirty minutes every day for the same month. The third group was told to do nothing, not even think about basketball.

After a month the first group, the group that actually physically practiced had improved an average of 32%. The group that did the mental rehearsal had improved an average of 31%. The third group was unchanged in skill level.

I experienced a similar improvement in my tennis game by doing mental rehearsal during the winter when I was not playing tennis. I used to apologize before playing in the spring saying I had not played all winter. When I played strongly, people simply didn’t believe me. I stopped the explanations and knew that I could rehearse before any match as I lay in bed. There were no bad bounces, no surprises. I could practice all my strokes with consistency. When the game came, I could handle anything that came up.

I teach my clients do the same kind of mental rehearsal with their trading. They trade consistently, following their rules, accepting losses and profits, taking the long view, as they mentally rehearse following their plan. As they do this, they are setting their intention to trade their methods effectively in the next live session.