# Digest from Dumuha Psychology By [Dmytro](https://paragraph.com/@dmytro-3) · 2023-01-06 --- Few of us are able to live up to our ideals. We have abilities and talents, dreams and aspirations. But when we look back, we see that only a small part of these ideals find expression in our actions. Days turn into months, then years, and, at one sad moment, we look at our lives and wonder, "Where is it all going?" Maybe you're just the average person who says, "Well, I could be #1 contender"? Maybe your fate could have turned out differently? Perhaps you could become the personification of your own ideals and live by realizing them? If you're thinking this is a strange introduction to a trading text, you're right. This material does not start with ask and offer, trading patterns and money management. It starts with you and what you want from life. _Trading in this context is more than buying, selling and hedging: it is an engine for self-control and self-development._ Every trader, whether he realizes it or not, is an entrepreneur. Traders open their business and compete in the market. They know and realize opportunities, even if they only want to preserve their capital. Traders perfect and develop their craft; they consciously take risks. Like entrepreneurs, traders enter the market from the very beginning. In the midst of minor disappointments and setbacks, limited resources, risk and uncertainty, it is very difficult to remain optimistic. It is very easy to put your dreams on the shelf and give up the daily effort to realize your ideals. However, some traders cannot postpone their desire for the police. Like butterflies, they fly to distant lights, even if they have to burn themselves. We dedicate this material to such noble souls. If reading small pieces of text every day and cultivating certain ideas in your mind will help you to set the right priorities in life and trading goals - and if this, in time, will help you not to make at least one bad deal a week and make a successful one, which in otherwise you might miss out — think about how you'll win financially and personally. But just like pills can't work if left in American banks, no one can learn anything from an unopened book. The first step to forming the right vision of trading from the psychological side is: to allocate time for self-development - every day, every week - because this is the kind of behavior parents turn into habits. ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/1941a6f1ec8d98f37d7b687dbc5fa7e0c0cea3f6b4af3b28cb326e337d845d71.png) The root of any learning is change. By acting as a trading coach for yourself, you are trying to influence changes in your thoughts, feelings, and behavior. First of all, you are trying to change the way you trade. There is a wealth of literature that describes change and is based on deep psychological research and extensive practice. If you understand how change occurs, you can act more effectively as an agent of that change. _Learning doesn't just mean letting change happen, it means making change yourself. It means taking responsibility to be the source of change in your life, your trade._ But first, let's get to know the process and practice of change. **Make emotions the conductor of change** We see fleeting glimpses of the person they are capable of being; we want to surpass the person we are in the average moments of our lives. This aspiration originates in the idea of change. We want change in our lives. We adapt—we grow—by making the right changes. However, very often we feel that we have stopped. We do the same things, make the same mistakes over and over again. Do we wait for life to change us, or do we become agents of change in our own lives? The easiest part of change is starting it. The real challenge is to achieve sustainable change. How many times does a person addicted to alcohol take the first step toward sobriety only to return to drinking? How often do we go on a diet and start working out, only to veer back onto the well-trodden lazy path? If we focus on the initial process of change, we remain unprepared for the next, important steps: keeping the flame bright in the hearth of change. The shortcoming of most change texts and practices is that they are designed only to initiate the change process. These books and practices make people feel good until it becomes clear that a different kind of effort is needed to sustain change. Successful learning doesn't just catalyze change: it transforms effort into behavioral patterns that become second nature. _The key to successful development is to turn change into a habit; make the new behavior second nature to us._ You may have told yourself that you need to follow your rules, trade less volume, or avoid trading during a certain market phase and time of day. But you're still making the same mistakes, losing money, and growing frustrated. So, your attempts to change will fail because they lack emotional strength. Do you intend to work on your trading skills today? Will you use this day as an opportunity to learn and grow regardless of the financial outcome? If so, you need a goal for the day. What do you want to work on? Over the development of your abilities? Fixing weaknesses? Repeating what you did well yesterday? Correcting yesterday's mistakes? **An important first** step is to set a goal. We cannot succeed as agents of change unless we clearly see the path from the person we are now to the person we want to become. **An important second** step is to record your goal on paper or say it out loud by recording it on a recorder. This helps to fix the desired changes in your mind. But will the pursuit of this goal be endowed with real emotional power? Will this desire trigger the transformation that turns the change thinker into a true change agent? ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/e1a1c3b9f23fa84c91352782b91a316c6381023d6d394ed62c30cadee77d5b03.png) --- *Originally published on [Dmytro](https://paragraph.com/@dmytro-3/digest-from-dumuha-psychology)*