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Building a Framework for Understanding Ourselves

The first step in this process of adaptation is recognizing the need to adapt.

If you can't manipulate or force the markets to change in a way that suits your needs, then you will need to learn how to change yourself to suit the conditions.

The next two steps in this process are to learn how to (1) identify exactly what changes you need to make to function successfully in the trading environment and (2) how to effect any mental changes that are necessary.

Manipulating the physical environment is as easy as moving a chair from one place to another because that's where you want or need to sit. However, to consciously change yourself to function more effectively in a market environment that will not respond to your attempts to manipulate it will require a thorough understanding of the nature and functioning of your mental environment.

First, you will need to learn some sophisticated mental skills to adapt yourself more readily to the constant changes with which the market confronts you—which will require neutralizing some commonly held cultural beliefs about success. (These are the beliefs that have the potential to distort market information.) Second, you will likely need to undo any psychological injury you may have sustained from your previous trading activity. Any psychological injury diminishes your capacity to execute your trades properly.

The first thing you will need is a structural framework to make the things that go on in your mental environment more tangible and concrete. To give you this framework, I will describe, define, and organize the component parts of the mental environment into a manageable context to where you can (1) understand your behavior, (2) learn the various techniques for manipulating your mental environment at your conscious direction to be more consistent with the environmental conditions and your goals, and (3) learn how to monitor your relationship with the exterior environment.

It is essential that you learn how to monitor your relationship between the interior and exterior environment because our goals, intents, expectations, needs, and wants are all component parts of our mental environment that we project out into the physical environment for fulfillment in some future moment. 

By making the connection between what we believe and what we experience, it will be a lot easier to change what we experience by learning how to manipulate our beliefs.
The predominate underlying force behind most traders' actions causing prices to move is fear—the fear of missing out (competing for the supply) and the fear of loss. If you really want to understand the market's behavior to anticipate what it will do next, then you will first have to learn about and understand the underlying forces beneath your own behavior and how you process and manage information.

If you can't change or control what the market is doing, then the only option you have left is to control yourself in a way that allows you to perceive what the market may do next with increased clarity and objectivity, requiring a thorough working knowledge of the nature of your inner environment in relationship to the outer physical environment.

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