The Mental Game of… Improving Your Mental Game

Jared Tendler
Jared Tendler

Jared Tendler is a top trading psychology expert with over 18 years of experience and the author of The Mental Game of Trading. Jared’s proven, practical methods help traders master the mental side of trading and enhance their performance.

September 9, 2024
5 min read
91 views

The path to success is not a linear one.

Instead, it’s often a frustrating “one step forward, two steps back” journey. For anyone focused on self-improvement, especially in trading, this reality can be both tiring and discouraging. You might have seen a trampoline video demonstrating the bumpy nature of progress, which is similar to how improving your mental game can feel.

Later in this blog, I’ve included real examples from traders in Trading Psychology Masterclass to show what mental game improvement looks like.

While this might seem “meta” or overly complex, there is a mental game to the process of improvement itself. Your current flaws may resurface, or new ones may emerge, making it harder to stay on track.

For example, a few wins might cause overconfidence, leading to overly aggressive risk management decisions, which you only realize after taking some big losses. Then, you become self-critical and make several bad decisions in a row. Soon, pessimism sets in, leaving you stuck and unsure of your next move.

Cleaning up a mess like this isn’t easy, especially when unprepared. Overconfidence is a common mental mistake that arises after initial progress, leading to a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows. This can slow down your overall progress, cause unstable performance, and leave you unsure of your next steps.

To help you avoid this, I’ll outline what the improvement cycle can look like.

Stages of Mental Game Improvement

With so many ups and downs in the process, it’s vital to focus on recognizing actual improvement. Noticing progress helps keep your motivation intact and boosts confidence. Here are the four phases you’ll experience as you work through each mental game problem:

Step 1: Greater Awareness

While it may not feel like progress, recognizing when your emotions have been triggered or noticing a shift in your mental state is the first step. Many traders don’t notice these triggers until they’re already dealing with full-blown fear, anger, or distractions. Through tracking and data collection, you start seeing the early signs before mistakes are made.

Step 2: Uncovering the Root

Understanding the real cause of your mental game issues is challenging. This is where many traders hire me for support. Gaining this insight is a significant accomplishment because it allows you to know exactly what you’re battling. A common mistake here is thinking that once you uncover the root, you no longer need a strategy to handle it—that rarely works.

Step 3: Establishing Command in Real Time

At this stage, there are more wins than losses, and you’re preventing emotions from derailing your decision-making. The frequency with which you need to apply mental strategies like “Injecting Logic” decreases as emotional triggers become less frequent. Stay patient, as long-term resolution takes time.

Step 4: Resolution

At this point, emotions like fear of missing out (FOMO), anger, or lack of confidence no longer affect your performance. You’re able to trade with a clear mind, and previous mental game issues no longer disrupt you. This allows you to focus on your A-game or address new challenges.

Tracking Your Progress

To ensure continued improvement, regularly ask yourself these questions:

  • What progress have I made?
  • How did I achieve it?
  • What mistakes or lessons did I learn along the way?

Are you enjoying this blog?

If you found it insightful and want to dive deeper into Trading Psychology, check out our Trading Psychology Masterclass by Jared Tendler!

Real-Life Examples from Traders

Example 1

What progress did you make? 

“I am way more calm and relaxed when trading. My results were also better in the last weeks. I am now able to let winning trades go to the target rather than cutting them short (I still have room for improvement, but I don’t chicken out anymore). Never made more than 2-3 R per winning trade before, now I have a few 5-10 R winners under my belt.”

How did you do it? 

“In a Mental Hand History I discovered the belief ‘I have to be profitable right now’ was flawed and unrealistic and I came up with a new one: ‘Now is the time to learn and deepen what I’ve already learnt, put it into practice and get better over time.’ I drastically reduced my risk per trade and suddenly 90% of my ‘bad emotions’ disappeared. I am now more focused on what’s happening in the market than on my emotions. I am also absolutely ok with losing trades now. Trading is way more fun with this new attitude.”

What mistakes or lessons did you learn while establishing that progress? 

“I have to do the work (in this case sitting down and writing a Mental Hand History) to change. Some more thoughts: I probably lost touch on this course because suddenly all my problems seemed to disappear. I know that this can not be true so I want to be part of the ‘Mental Game of Trading’ journey again. Am I overconfident now? I am not sure. But I am aware of the possibility and think that’s good because I can take action if overconfidence becomes a new problem for me.”

Example 2

What progress did you make? 

“I still don’t have complete control over my emotions in real-time, but I am able to acknowledge them in the moment. Although I do think the severity of my emotions has begun to reduce naturally, without my having to step in, as a result of me filling in my technical knowledge gap.” 

How did you do it? 

“Soooooooo many Mental Hand Histories. Writing down the thoughts and finding the flaws within those thoughts allowed me to process a lot of emotions, which in turn allowed me to create a map of my emotions. The map has helped me to diagnose my emotional state faster in real-time.” 

What mistakes or lessons did you learn while establishing that progress? 

“That I just have to start. My first, second and third drafts will probably be sh*t, make 0 sense, and sound like a diary entry, but I just have to start. My real-time-strategies may have no effect on me and I may have to re-draft it several times, but I just have to start it!”

Example 3

What progress did you make? 

“I’m more aware of the impact emotions have on my trading. There has been an improvement of my trading across the board and I’m trading better technically and emotionally. I’m no longer afraid of taking a loss and I’m not only focusing on my PnL but rather looking at how I performed on the given day.”

How did you do it? 

“Mental hand history and the perfectionism worksheet. I also read my A to C-game analysis every day before I start trading. The biggest change came from collecting the data and giving me a chance to understand when and why my emotions start to cause issues in my trading.”

What mistakes or lessons did you learn while establishing that progress? 

“I have to do the work and be willing to resolve the issues. No one else can or will do it for me. There is no magic pill and I need to work on understanding myself and my triggers – something I have struggled with from day 1 in trading.”

Written by: Jared Tendler | Trading Psychology Coach

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