In the world of trading, from carefully formulating strategies to firmly executing them, every step is a journey of introspection and self-awareness. This process is essentially a refinement and elevation of the human 'five poisons'—greed, fear, ignorance, arrogance, and doubt. Completely abandoning human weaknesses may seem like a fantasy, but we can transform them into 'precepts, concentration, and wisdom.' 'Precepts' mean following rules, setting boundaries for trading behavior; 'concentration' means holding onto one’s original intention, unaffected by market fluctuations; 'wisdom' is the ability to perceive the essence behind market appearances, not blinded by the fog. Doubt, often, is the root cause of the collapse of trading strategies.
The construction of trading strategies can be the crystallization of self-exploration or the result of learning from others' experiences, but the key lies in deeply understanding and trusting the strategies employed, using clear, objective, and practical rules to dispel internal doubts. Greed often manifests as a tendency towards perfectionism in trading. Once a trading system misses a market opportunity, there is an impatient urge to modify it, trying to capture every fluctuation, falling into endless learning and adjustment, fantasizing about controlling all market movements with one system, unaware that this is the effect of greed.
Fear is like thorns on the path of trading. When the signal of fear appears, many traders shrink back, unable to maintain consistency in execution. Behind this often lies the trader's subconscious attempt to predict the market, especially when the system signals contradict their predictions, leading to chaos. Arrogance, on the other hand, is the 'hallucination' after success. After several accurate predictions, traders easily develop a sense of arrogance, becoming oblivious to reality, and even abandon the stop-loss 'safety valve'; once the market reverses, they are quickly brought back to reality.
Trading, at its core, is a self-cultivation practice. Its purpose is to gain insight into the heart, comprehend the essence of trading, find a method that fits oneself, peacefully accept imperfections, no longer resist the market's unpredictability, and avoid significant losses; in this way, profits will naturally flow. Any trading system is just a tool on the path of practice; what truly leads us to stable profits is the inner mindset that masters these tools. If one merely blindly chases various trading strategies without addressing the 'five poisons' within, it will be difficult to escape the quagmire of losses and achieve the elevation of trading mastery.