[New Series Zone Final Chapter 12] The Mental Foundation for Steady Progress — Achieving a Painless Mind of the "Slot Machine Player" ??

To you on the other side of the screen, who is seriously facing the charts today and striving for the future of yourself and your family ☕️✨

In the previous 【Chapter 11】, we talked about how “mental skills” are indispensable to produce results under extreme pressure, and the author Mark Douglas himself learned this from a painful past failure of bankruptcy, right?

Finally, in this 【Chapter 12】, we begin the concrete foundationsfor building those “mental skills.” ?️✨ “Why can't we follow the rules? Why is cutting losses scary?” The answers lie in the stark contradiction between a certain belief subconsciously instilled in us by society and the reality of trading.

This time as well, to be easily readable on smartphones, we will condense the key points and provide deep explanations. Prepare some warm tea, relax, and keep reading?✨

? The End of the Journey to Find the “Absolutely No-Loss Method”

Throughout Part II, we learned that price movements are caused by the flow of buy and sell orders. At the start of Chapter 12, the author emphasizes that to succeed in trading, “there is far more required than just learning how to win.”

We tend to seek analytical methods that can precisely predict others’ intentions so that we don’t have to face our chances of making mistakes or losing. However, the more we understand the driving force behind price movements, the more we must accept the fact that there is no analysis method that can consistently predict price direction correctly.

There are many excellent predictive techniques, so why don’t they correlate with trading results? It’s because we are driven by fear—fear of cutting losses, fear of losing, fear of profits being eroded—and thus we take inappropriate actions. Ironically, the very pain-avoidance-driven “inappropriate trading” born from the fear of losing creates a vicious cycle that causes even more pain.

The market is not a place that proves your beliefs or shows you what you want to see. To adapt to the reality the market offers, you need to “change yourself, not the market.”

? The Cultural Curse that “Winning Is Everything”

The biggest barrier to changing oneself is the social environment in which we were raised. The author warns against the belief most strongly held in American culture (and Japan’s competitive society as well) that “winning is everything.”

From a young age, we were taught to be obsessed with winning and that losing is a terrible thing (a loser). However, in the world of trading, there is a large contradiction between this value of “winning is everything” and the fundamental reality of trading. Because to achieve the success you desire in trading, it is absolutely necessary to grow from losses and learn something.

If you remain in a mindset that cannot accept losses, you will make wrong judgments and suffer. The author strongly argues that this means you lack the essential skills needed to succeed in trading, or you completely lack them.

? The “Three Essential Skills” That Produce Steady Results

So, to break this cultural curse and achieve steady results, what is required? The author divides the skills to be learned into three major categories.