Are you procrastinating working on your trading strategies and improving your trading process? Are you a perfectionist and maybe feel like you can't get started until you feel more organized, but then it has been months? Maybe what's preventing you from taking action is that you have become so overwhelmed and don't know where or how to start?
Taking imperfect action is better than no action at all.
EP 015 Transcript
Welcome to the Affirmations for Traders podcast, a special space created, especially for you to listen to affirmations that make a positive impact to support you in your trading journey. I'm Tessa your host, like many of you as a trader, I understand the struggles of this journey very intimately. I believe that by adding the power of affirmations to your toolbox, it can be the game changer that you're looking for to help you improve your trading potential and to develop yourself into a better trader.
You're listening to episode 15 of the Affirmations for Traders podcast.
How are you doing? Two weeks feel like a long time. And I'm still adjusting to this new schedule!
The topic this week is about taking action. Even when you feel overwhelmed.
Are you experiencing an overwhelming amount of pressure in your trading? Do you have a lot that you want to accomplish in building or improving and refining aspects of your trading routine and process? Maybe at the same time, you might have so much going on in your personal life, work or professional life, and on top of that with the complexities of the world? It just seems so overwhelming.
I experience this every now and then, but I have been getting better at recognizing when I could be over-extending myself, when I need to take a pause and take a break and walk away. It takes intentionally zooming out and reflecting on how things are going and what needs to be adjusted in terms of maybe your timeline that you set for yourself, and schedule, or certain expectations and goals.
But, is this overwhelming feeling making you feel stuck and frozen? Reflecting back on the earlier days of my trading journey, I remember being so eager and determined about how to transition from one type of trading to another. In my case, from trading stocks to trading options. I knew I had a huge learning curve ahead of me just to get to the basics. And I was stuck for a period of time because I was so frozen with overwhelming-ness, if that's a word...overwhelming feelings...even though I felt so strongly about my WHY for getting into trading.
So, I was thinking back to what I did to overcome those overwhelming feelings that left me stuck and frozen. And, I want to borrow a concept that I'm going to share with you that I learned from one of my mentors, which is to take "Imperfect Action". So what I mean by imperfect action...it means not taking perfect action. In the dictionary, imperfect is basically faulty or incomplete. And so what I'm saying here is taking incomplete action, or less than perfect action.
The idea behind taking imperfect action is to get you to practice getting in the habit of doing something no matter how small or seemingly insignificant it is every day to help you towards your goals and to get you unstuck. So it doesn't have to be perfect or perfectly planned or require too much deep thought to get started. This is especially helpful for those who are perfectionists, but it's also good for those who procrastinate. And a lot of times we procrastinate, not because they're lazy, but because sometimes we're just overwhelmed and don't know where to start.
So, can you break down your goals into smaller, bite sized chunks? Into smaller, micro actions?
Again, these are imperfect actions, not perfect actions.
So, I want to give you an example, just to make this more real. For example, if you want to build into your Trading process, getting better at studying Technical Analysis. That sure sounds really overwhelming, right?
So, if you're stuck, brainstorm some "micro actions" that you can take today to do something about it? Even if you don't know where to start, just do something to get your brain/body moving.
Day 1 for example. Maybe you can do a quick search in Google and type in "Trading Technical Analysis" or "Technical Analysis" and look at the top 5 search results. Pick 1 result that came from the search, and just read it. So, this might take 10 to 15 minutes. You might even just do a search and not even read, and that counts as an action, a micro action.
Day 2 might be to pick a platform, any platform, like say for example StockCharts.com or Finviz.com, and plug in any one stock symbol and see what comes up. So that might take less than 5 minutes. You might want to look at the chart that shows up in one time frame. How long would that take? Maybe less than 5 minutes. Write down your initial thoughts on what you saw, even if you don't know what it means. Just guess. 5 minutes. So, that's an example of what you can do on Day 2.
Day 3 might be to do a deeper dive for 15 minutes on what you saw the other day, and dig deeper into what you might see. For example, let's just say the stock did a huge gap up near the resistance levels.
See...none of these actions are perfect, but it gets you moving and doing something, right? It gives you some confidence in your ability to take action first of all, no matter how small or imperfect. That's what matters right now, that you are doing something to break down that overwhelm feeling.
Ask yourself, what imperfect actions can you take everyday? It might only be one action, that takes just less than one minute. Think about that. It helps to give the overwhelming feeling less power, and gets you to do something about it...one small, micro step at a time.
Before we start, let's prepare ourselves. Take a moment and close your eyes. Give yourself permission to be open to the affirmations you're about to hear. And feel free to repeat along with me.
Let's begin.
1. I can do one imperfect thing every day to move me in the direction of my goals.
2. The daily small micro actions that I take make a big impact over time.
3. I let go of pursing perfection and instead focus on taking imperfect but consistent action.
4. What matters is I take action, no matter how small or imperfect.
5. When I feel overwhelmed, I take a deep breath, step away, and come back when I'm ready.
6. I break down my larger goals into smaller, realistic and achievable actions.
7. I zoom out to remind myself of the big picture.
8. I zoom back in to focus taking on imperfect actions that move me towards the big picture.
9. My small, imperfect actions are easy to do and make me feel productive.
10. I continue to practice taking action every day no matter how small or imperfect.
11. My ability to take action every day is becoming easier.
During the week, reflect on these affirmations and repeat them with deep intention. Feel free to add any of your own to this week's affirmations.
You were listening to Affirmations for Traders. Thank you so much for listening and this is just a reminder that the episodes are coming out every other week instead of every week. Have a wonderful day, have a wonderful week. Take care.