NLP in Trading

This article explains what neurolinguistic programming (NLP) is. Can techniques like these help you achieve better results in trading? Opinions on this topic vary, but it is certainly an interesting alternative to the classical approaches commonly used by traders or psychologists.

What is Neurolinguistic programming

On a conquest for a better self and better profits, at some point, a trader will begin to look inwards.

• Why is everyone making money and I am not?
• Why are the people who have the same strategy as me, getting different results?
• Why is it so hard to remain positive and resilient in the face of losses and ranging markets?

Remove the frills and all it essentially means is it's an approach that aims to shift the intended person's behaviour.

In fact, one of the presuppositions of NLP is that the person is not the behaviour. And thus a negative behaviour can be a mixture of many things. Perspective, context, state, filters, among others.

At any given time, there are 2 million bits of information available. As you see, feel, taste, hear with all your senses, any situation will provide an overwhelming amount of information.

Our brains, however, are very skilled at three things. Deleting, Distorting, and Generalizing.

This is our nature and this is how humans can create decisions with speed and conviction.

In the end, out of 2 million pieces of information, we only retain 134 bits. Everything else has been deleted, distorted, or generalized.

That's why one group can be witnessing in the same scenario and have different interpretations.

In trading, the situation is similar.

The charts can be the same, but the experience is different. This will essentially create different reactions and actions from the participants.

In NLP, a lot of work is all about influencing the state of a person to a more resourceful one.

A beautiful state that does not deprive, but instead places a trader with a variety of choices that can serve their higher intention.

When you are in the middle of crisis trading or trading on tilt, the focus is on the problem. To break this state and to shift it, there are three things that need to be realigned.

Focus, Physiology, language.

Physiology - the way you are breathing, posed the tension in your muscle. All of this spells crisis. Relaxing your breathing and fixing your posture can automatically bring you to a powerful state because it negates the physiology of a frightened one.

Language - the self-talk. The words we use during the moment.

Changing it from a berating tone of voice to an understanding voice that exudes confidence and command is not unnatural. We all have that voice, the same voice, language, tonality that we use when our best friend needs someone to confide to.

We just need to re-channel it at that moment and re-direct it towards ourselves.

Lastly, the Focus. Where is the trader focused? The deed is done, the chaos is set. Is the trader focused at the problem created or at the solution that's still available on hand?

Moving any of the three can start a process that makes the trader more resourceful and begins a shift from 134 bits of information that doesn't help their goals to the 134 bits that can. NLP in Trading.