Source: Qilehui
I believe that once trading reaches a certain level, it no longer has anything to do with technical skills.
What many seasoned traders lack is not technical skill, but rather a heart as steady as a rock.
01 Emotion is the Achilles' heel for most traders
After working in futures trading for so long and witnessing the ups and downs of so many people, I have ultimately come to understand one truth:
The real enemy for most ordinary traders is their own uncontrollable 'emotions'.
As the saying often goes in this field: 'With the Way but without technique, technique can still be attained; with technique but without the Way, one is limited to technique alone.'
Many people are always thinking about mastering sophisticated techniquesTechnical indicatorsand finding precise buy/sell signals, yet they overlook the most crucial aspect they should cultivate — their inner self, or the 'Way' of trading. In the end, they all fall victim to the vortex of emotions, a lesson I learned the hard way early on and one that has since been etched into my mind.
I’m sure you’ve experienced this kind of trading: when the market moves in line with your expectations, and the floating profits in your account gradually increase, that sense of smugness and greed grows like wild grass.
Before you know it, the price exceeds your preset profit-taking point, but seeing the K-line still climbing higher, you can't help but think, 'Just wait a little longer, sell after it goes up a bit more, every extra bit counts.'
You keep raising your profit target, but then one day, the market suddenly reverses, wiping out all previous gains and even eating into part of your principal. That drastic fall from euphoria to despair can leave you gasping for breath.
Many people closely tie the outcome of their trades to their trading ability. Because they place excessive importance on their own capabilities, they easily fall into emotional traps triggered by profits and losses.
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing oneself is wisdom. Often, we are not struggling against the market but rather combating the weaknesses of human nature. Trading with emotions will inevitably lead to failure sooner or later.
Naturally, some might ask, do they have no emotions at all?
Of course, they have emotions—who doesn’t?
Even good traders experience an accelerated heartbeat due to market fluctuations and feel nervous when unrealized profits retract.
However, the key difference between them and ordinary traders is that they know how to coexist with their emotions and, more importantly, establish a system for managing their emotions, ensuring that reason always governs their trading decisions—not emotions.
In both trading and life, we often observe that the more one suppresses emotions, the stronger the rebound becomes, eventually leading to an inevitable eruption.
While many emotional issues in daily life may be unsolvable, emotional challenges in trading can be addressed. The key lies in improving our understanding of emotions.
Greed is nothing more than an excessive desire for profit, and panic is merely an exaggerated fear of losses.
The emphasis here is on 'excessive.' Who doesn’t desire to make more money? Who isn’t afraid of losses? But what these emotions fear most is becoming 'excessive.'
Futures Exchange,It is a form of practice, not about honing skills but cultivating the mind. Only by mastering one's emotions can one survive in this market for the long term.
Next, I will explain how excellent traders cultivate their emotions, following three principles:
1) Accept losses and avoid fighting the market.
2) Build walls with rules to block emotional interference.
3) Step outside oneself and become an observer of the market.
02 The First Practice for Traders: Accept Losses and Avoid Fighting the Market
Top-tier traders no longer dwell on the gains or losses of individual trades.
They understand clearly: losses? Completely normal.
Just as breathing consumes energy, running a business incurs costs, and so does trading—it naturally comes with expenses.
Becoming anxious or overly emotional due to a single loss? That’s a trap only beginners fall into.
In the eyes of skilled traders, a single win or loss means very little. Futures trading is a marathon that tests long-term logic and probability.
Therefore, when losses strictly conform to their trading rules, they often breathe a sigh of relief, thinking, 'This execution was good.' This money wasn’t wasted; like commissions and time costs, it’s a necessary ticket to participate.
Can you call buying a ticket a failure? Of course not.
The market rises and falls, but they sit calmly on the shore observing the tides, fully aware of what’s happening.
However, they too started as beginners, so this emotional control is the result of deliberate practice leading to relaxation.
When you stop viewing losses as a negation of your abilities, you truly gain the confidence to survive in the market for the long term.
03 The Trader's Cultivation II: Building Walls with Rules to Block Emotional Interference
Contrary to what many believe, the collapse of emotions in trading often doesn’t stem from overwhelming fear or greed but precisely begins with a seemingly harmless sense of侥幸 (wishful thinking).
What if?
This thought alone is enough to dismantle all rules.
How do top traders respond?
They don’t rely on sheer willpower in the heat of the moment—that’s too unrealistic. Instead, they use fixed rules early on to confine trading within a controllable scope.
This may sound rigid, but the brilliance lies precisely here: when all 'what-ifs' have been anticipated and converted into clear instructions, emotions no longer have room to interfere.
How specific should these rules be? Entry signals, stop-loss thresholds, profit-taking targets, position sizing…
When market volatility arises, excellent traders no longer need to wrestle with emotions; they simply enforce strict adherence: if prices hit the stop-loss level, even if reluctant, their fingers will press the exit button; if the trend reaches the profit target, even amid promising prospects, they’ll choose to lock in gains as planned.
This is, in fact, the highest form of rationality.
By locking volatile emotions within a fixed framework, reliance on fleeting bursts of high profits transforms into repeatable, testable rules.
A trader whom I deeply admire once told me: 'The reason I’ve made it this far in futures trading isn’t because I’m smarter than others; rather, it’s because I’m more foolish than many. I simply control my impulses and stick to my own rules.'
Rules become their strongest armor.
04 The Trader's Discipline Three: Transcend Yourself, Become an Observer of the Market
True trading experts prefer to position themselves as observers, like an audience quietly watching the drama of market movements unfold on their own.
It is precisely this sense of detachment that allows them to gradually grow into the most outstanding traders.
When they win, they do not attribute it to their own brilliance, but at most to having correctly interpreted a segment of the plot; when they lose, they do not immediately blame their lack of ability, but perhaps see it as an unexpected turn in the episode.
You ask how to achieve this specifically?
This requires an exceptionally high level of "alertness" to one’s emotions: once they feel their heartbeat accelerating, breathing becoming tense, or their mind starting to spin with thoughts of 'what if this time is different,' these are typically dangerous signals that emotions are about to take over, and excellent traders will unhesitatingly call a halt.
Proactively exit the market.
The purpose is simple: to allow the calm and objective self to regain control.
When one stops trying to be the center of the market, one can instead gain a clearer perspective: the ability to bypass the fog of emotions and market movements to see the true nature of price fluctuations.
This may be a state of trading: not being obsessed with right or wrong, but only focusing on observation and facts.
05 The core of trading lies in cultivating the mind, not mastering techniques.
I gradually realized that in futures trading, knowledge about skills and indicators seems to always hit a ceiling.
What truly sets people apart often lies beyond the screen—it is a genuine cultivation of the mind.
The face of the market changes in an instant; there is no holy grail of trading systems that can remain perpetually effective.
Yet, strangely, there are always some who manage to consistently secure profits. Their secret lies in maintaining inner composure amidst countless market fluctuations.
Therefore, perhaps every trader should shift their focus slightly away from those fluctuating red and green numbers.
Calm your mind and refine your mental resilience.
When you can truly view each trade with equanimity, emotions become a subtle perceptual tool, helping you detect minute shifts in market conditions.
This inward journey may well be the path that leads closer to the truth within the world of trading.
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Editor/KOKO
