“Life is a game of decision making and the right amount of confidence can you lead you to make the right one. How confident were you when you made the last critical decision that you had to think about?”

Marques Johnson —

The decision making we choose in life that is critical to us personally or in your work environment, business, sports, sales and almost anything else, has a lot to do with confidence. Another way you can look at it is, do you have the self-belief that you can execute the task at hand and learning to take the doubt out of your head which we all deal with, even for the most confident individual who may not admit it, to help create a winning mentality.

Think about it for a guy when he’s going to approach a female he’s had an eye on for some time or in the gym when putting a certain amount of weight on the bar. You’re not going to put on a set of weight to use if you don’t feel confident you’re going to be able to lift up the weight, right? Even if you fail, you still had the confidence within yourself that you could overcome the obstacle in front of you. What allowed you to even get to that point where you’re willing to try to attempt something even if it’s not a guarantee you will succeed, is preparation and prior execution in the past that’s given you positive momentum in life and minimized doubt. So even when you take an L, you have complete confidence that you will win again regardless of the previous outcome and not be hesitant to take action when you see an opportunity.

In trading we deal with this on every single trade we take, there’s no guarantee when we click that submit order button that we will be right. But with preparation, a daily routine, practice (paper trading), proper position sizing which is probably the most critical aspect of trading I would tell anyone, because if you are comfortable with your risk you are willing to take in that one trade, especially when you know if the worst thing happens you can stomach the risk as well as having the skillset to hedge your position, then you will have more confidence in your probability of success regardless if you’re wrong. Once you have that type of mentality, it almost comes to a point where you’re trading unconsciously and that’s when real confidence has arrived.

If you are in a place in your trading where you are emotional about a position you put on or apprehensive about a potential trade you debating to make, then more than likely the best thing to do is to not take the trade, because clearly, your confidence about the outcome in your favor isn’t present. With that said there is no shame in being patient waiting for the right opportunity, because there is nothing worse than being in a situation where you are in the market hoping you were never in it as you’re losing money compared to being in a cash position missing out because at the end of the day there is always another opportunity daily in trading to make money.

No matter what situation we’re in, whether it is trading or for anything we want in life, we as people create our own doubt within ourselves but we also create the ceiling.

Marques Johnson. Full-time Trader.

I’m from Virginia and I grew up in a military home where I was raised by two parents who provided me the best of both worlds from how to be a good person and how to be self-sufficient in life. I’ve been trading for three years now and each year there’s always something significant I learn because the markets are changing all the time. I particularly focus on trading stock and futures options but trading isn’t the only thing I’m passionate about. Fitness is a significant aspect of my life and personal training is what I do throughout the day, so the balance of trading and fitness is a great mix for me mentally and physically which keeps me motivated every day.

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