The Art of Effortless Trading

Prologue

The year was 2002, and I was crazy about computer games. One of my favorite games was Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. I loved the graphics; especially the cars, roads, landscape, and scenery which kept me spellbound.

I often played it with my cousin, who was about 8-10 years younger than me. He always beat me, no matter how hard I tried or how much I practiced. I always wondered if his age gave him the edge.

It was another one of those days, & we were playing. During the game, I casually remarked, “Oh, look at that waterfall.”

“Waterfall? What waterfall?” he replied.

I said, “That waterfall pouring down from the mountain! Just look how beautifully they have created the graphics.”

“Yeah, you keep looking at the waterfall; that’s why you never win,” he giggled.

“Well, smartass, then you tell me how to win.”

He replied, “Just focus on the road, shut down your mind, and play the game frame-by-frame.“

“Yes, Grandpa,” I said, rolling my eyes.

While outwardly shrugging off his advice, I understood he was correct. In the next game, I had complete focus. The road was all I could see, and I didn’t even pay attention to the car I was driving. I anticipated the road’s turns and used the controls to move forward faster. That day, I achieved my personal best in the game.

That game would’ve lasted about a couple of minutes, but I don’t remember anything other than the gameplay during those minutes. I don’t remember the landscape, where I was sitting, or who was with me. I don’t recall anything. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I ceased to exist during those few minutes. It was a feeling of complete unity.

At that moment, I was the game.

Zen in the Art of Archery

Many years passed, and before I knew it, I was a ‘crazy’ stock trader.

But even after years of practice, something was missing. And it was certainly not my lack of focus, for I had already learned my lesson from computer games.

In the search for solutions, I came across a book published in 1948 by a German philosophy professor, Eugen Herrigel. The book, “Zen in the Art of Archery,” presents an account of the author’s journey to grasp Zen’s philosophical concepts through Japanese archery. The author initially views archery as a physical skill but later learns to achieve a state of complete unity between mind and body, enabling him to become one with the bow, arrow, and target.

One of the central teachings is that the archer does not shoot the arrow; instead, ‘It’ shoots. The process involves letting go of conscious effort and allowing the shot to happen naturally, without the interference of the ego or analytical thought.

By now, you must have asked many times. “But what’s all this got to do with stock trading?”

Please bear with me as I reference two other sources to explain how this is intricately related to trading or, for that matter, any activity in life.

Focus & effort

As I moved further in my journey towards achieving the ‘zen’ in my trading, I read (and discarded) a large amount of literature, but two books stood out.

In the first of those books, ‘Hyperfocus—How to Work Less to Achieve More,’ author Chris Bailey described two mental modes: hyperfocus and scatter focus.

Hyperfocus is our deep concentration mode, where we direct our attention to a single task, while scatter focus is the creative, reflective mode, where the mind is allowed to wander.

Hyperfocus achieves deep work & peak productivity, while scatter focus is crucial for creativity & innovative thought processes.

The other book was Daniel Kahneman’s bestselling ‘Thinking Fast & Slow‘. This book highlighted the differences between instantaneous system one thinking and deliberate system two thinking.

System one thinking is spontaneous and instinctive, derived mainly from past experiences. On the other hand, system two takes over with conscious, analytical reasoning used in new, unfamiliar scenarios. As repeated mental processes become faster and more effortless over time, there occurs (or rather, should occur) a transition from system two to system one.

What I found interesting was that the two books discussed two different concepts, focus and effort, which, when combined, provided the ultimate conclusion, already ‘given’ to me by ‘Zen in the art of archery’ and my little cousin while playing Need for Speed.

The Zen of Effort & Focus in Trading

Focus (or, to use Chris Bailey’s term, hyper-focus) is not just a prerequisite for success but the foundation for successful trading. Focus isn’t about staring harder at charts; it’s about the trader channeling all his resources into what matters, & filtering out distractions.

What’s interesting is the ‘effort’ component, & the fact that the more you repeat a skill, the less mental effort it demands.

Repetition is the key to transitioning tasks from system two (which requires effort) to system one (which is effortless). This shift is central to automating behaviors—for example, a person learning to drive a car for the first time. As a new driver, he depends on thinking with system two, where he has his uninterrupted focus on applying the brakes, pushing the accelerator, and signaling the turns. Each of these actions requires deliberate attention. However, with consistent practice, these processes gradually become automatic. An experienced driver navigates, adjusts speed, and reacts to traffic without consciously analyzing every step, & this is thinking with system one in action.

A similar transition often occurs as traders develop experience. For instance, a novice trader who once depended upon many indicators gradually outlives their utility and starts discarding them over time, as repetition hardwires his intuitive understanding of price and volume. Over time, what once demanded intense effort becomes almost automatic.

This shift from effortfulness to effortlessness and from scatter focus to hyperfocus is the ultimate state to strive for. This transition is the hack for every activity in life, be it stock trading, playing the piano, learning a new language, playing chess, writing literature, public speaking, or even cooking.

One significant advantage of trading compared to other activities is that the entire history of a stock is available at the click of a button. Reviewing the past movements of the chart presents the trader with sufficient familiarity and reference points for the future. So, the next time he encounters similar trading situations in real time, he needs to employ less of his effortful system two.

The trader needs to focus sharply on his plan, but his decision-making should be effortless (or he should aim to make it effortless). He can make effortless decisions by hyper-focusing on the process—following his strategy, managing risk, and maintaining discipline—rather than obsessing over individual wins or losses.

The trader shouldn’t force the trade; it should happen naturally. Just as a gamer waits for the road to turn and an archer waits for the perfect moment to release the arrow, a trader must wait for trades that align with his strategy. The trading system should act as an ‘It’, a disciplined framework that executes trades objectively, reducing emotional interference.

Zen in trading is all about concentration over distraction and ease over effort. Like the archer who unites with the bow, the trader becomes one with the market’s rhythm.

Epilogue

As I achieved my best time in the game, my heart beat as fast as possible.

“So, how did I do?” I asked my cousin, excited.

“Much better, but you need to stop hitting the keyboard too hard,” he replied. I couldn’t understand what he meant then, but now I do.