Beliefs

According to NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), your behaviours in an activity are affected by the beliefs and values you have associated to it. As an example, say you want to become better at public speaking (behaviour) and you take some classes, but despite all the training, deep down you don't believe you are any good at public speaking, then when it comes around to standing up to speak, your body will respond to your beliefs and your voice will waver, etc. Then, when you get some feedback, you'll filter it through those beliefs, e.g. if there are two people both of whom are equally talented but one has the belief that they are a great public speaker and the other that they are not, then if they both get told that they are really good, one will believe it and use that comment to reinforce their belief further, whereas the other won't believe it and will probably find a way to use it to back up their belief that they are not.

Okay, all well and good but what has this got to do with trading? Well, part of your success or failure is related to the beliefs you have. If you don't believe that you'll ever make a profit or successfully trade at a new level of stake then you will find a way to make that happen. This is where self sabotage appears. Where you do something stupid, knowing it's stupid, but do it all the same. NLP offers lots of processes for changing beliefs but sometimes, just realising that a false belief is present, can help bring it to the surface so you can start breaking it down and challenging it.

Freeing my mind

I had a bit of an epiphany last night. It should have been obvious, but often, you don't notice things about yourself as easily as you do in others. I'll tell you what it was in a minute.

Those of you who have heard of NLP (neuro linguistic programming) will know that it is being used in the business world and in the sporting world to help people really boost their performance and blast through limitations. You see, most of the limitations we have are due to limiting beliefs that we carry around in our unconscious minds (I call it the unconscious mind, some people call it the subconscious). We have two minds, effectively. Our mind is like an ice berg. On the surface is the conscious mind and below is the unconscious mind. The conscious mind is used day to day for analysing, planning and making logical choices. The unconscious mind handles everything else, from keeping us breathing to managing our emotional responses. So, the unconscious mind is pretty powerful. Most of us think we make our decisions rationally, but in most cases, they are driven by emotions and urges from the unconscious mind and then justified by our conscious mind. How many times have you gone out, bought something you didn't need, either on a whim or because you got "sold" on it and then justified it to yourself afterwards (usually with a paper thin excuse)? How many people would really continue smoking if the choice was a purely conscious one? We all know how damaging smoking is, but the urge to smoke comes from the unconscious (I can explain why, if anyone is interested), so it is a hard one to continuously resist. Changing unconscious behaviour by using will power (conscious mind effort) is really difficult. It is like trying to explain quantum physics to someone who speaks a different language. NLP and hypnosis give us a way to change things at the unconscious level.

Okay, so I've gone a bit off track, let me tie it together. Last night I was looking at the trades I had been making. Each session I would start really well and then just before the end I would do something silly that would wipe out my winnings and about 10% more. Even if I did something daft and let a bet run and it came in, at the end of the session I would do something to lose it. Now, if I heard this about someone else, I would immediately look at it from an NLP perspective and suggest that perhaps there is a limiting belief in place that is causing the underlying behaviour, i.e. not following the system and doing things that cause the loss. I never thought to apply that thinking to myself, until yesterday. I believe that if I just topped up my bank and started again, I would keep doing the same things wrong. I need to fix the root cause, the limiting belief.

So, first off, I did a couple of NLP techniques, one, called a parts integration, seemed to instantly help. I will top up my bank again and try again. How will I know I have made the necessary changes? I will take sticking to the system as evidence. I'll feedback on whether my quick NLP intervention has made a difference or if I need to do more. This might be useful to others out there that are going through the same thing.

I can explain more about how beliefs influence our decisions and how we can realign them if anyone is interested, in another post.

First Post

Hi,

My names Richard. I've got a number of diverse interests and one of those is trading on the bet exchanges. Just to give an idea of what I mean by diverse, I have worked in IT for a number of years (For those in the know or who like IT acronyms: SQL Server, .NET, AS, SSIS, XML, etc), I am an avid screenwriter and involved in putting together a short film (http://diaryofashortfilm.blogspot.com) and am also a hypnotist and NLP master practitioner.
So, basically, I am a bit strange!

The hardest part of my life is trying to find time to do anything! I am in the process of getting married (2 weeks to go) and my finance and I have two kids (Rebecca who is 8 and little Harry who is 2).

The purpose of this blog is to document my progress Bet Exchange trading, starting with a tiny bank of £100 and aiming for a chunky £100K (nice if you've got it). I plan to discuss any ideas, strategies and learnings and feedback on any developments I make in terms of software etc. I'm aiming to put together my own bit of trading software using the Betfair API, so if anyones interested, I can share details of that.

Oh yeah, I intend to focus solely on Horse racing as the market for my trading. I'm not particularly interested in horse racing per se, but it seems to be an idea to focus on a specific market and there are a lot of races every day.