When trading eminis, especially when starting, you need to guard yourself against all kinds of failures and problems that can easily ruin your trading career. One of them is particularly serious. We talk about it in this article.

Incidentally, that applies not only to trading eminis, as emini futures are often referred to, but also to trading stocks, or currencies. I suspect that you will find that this applies quite well also to many other situations that have little or even nothing at all to do with trading.

So, what is it?

Well… it’s quite simple, but easy to do if you don’t pay attention to it. Very easy. It has a lot to do with one’s self-confidence and self-esteem. But even self-confident people are not always totally immune from making this mistake although they tend to be better informed about its danger.

So, what is it?

Well, this can really make your life miserable in more than one way. It can prevent you from progressing as a trader and sometimes even make you stop trading. Even when you are probably just a few steps away from becoming a consistently profitable emini trader.

So, what is it?

It’s quite simple, as I said, and it is negative thinking. Yes, now once I have finally spelled it out you probably recognize your perennial enemy of yours. The one that messes up with your mind all the time, that inspires self-doubt, that paints things in strikingly bleak shades.

Negative thinking comes in many forms and it can strike at any time, but usually does so when things are not going well. When this happens we are more likely to lose self-confidence, our trust in the methods we are using. This can lead us to abandon our tools in search of better ones, the ones that, or so we hope, will be so good that we will never end up doubting them again. And so the search for the Holy Grail begins, spurred, ridiculously enough by just a bit of self-doubt, small or perhaps even bigger a loss, that got exaggerated as it happens from time to time.

This happens because we lose perspective. And then we forget better days, the days when everything was going in our favor as if touched with a magic wand. Yes, days like that happen too and it’s so easy to discount them as perhaps accidental when we are suffering a loss or two and things seem to be going against us. But who says that this will last forever? It’s rather unlikely.

When negative thinking happens what you need to keep in mind is that your thinking and perception of things is likely out of whack and the best thing you can do in the case like that is to stay the course. Yes, simply take it easy and even take a break, if you think that this will help you to cope better, stick to trading on a simulator for a while, but don’t take your setback too seriously, don’t abandon your trading methods too soon. More often than not this is a wrong idea, a premature action that may cost you a lot of wasted time in the long run.

While emini trading does not have to be challenging, you may inadvertently make it so if you don’t pay attention to your thinking. To conquer emini markets, to become really good at trading emini futures you want to equip yourself with a positive outlook.

By: Waldemar Puszkarz