I need to plow through all the Innersworth daily emails that I've been accumulating, so while I do that on this Sunday morning (the New York Giants have a bye-week), let me cut & paste things that strike my fancy or strike an inner chord:

Reduce Stress During the Trading Day - Exercise regularly. A rigorous exercise schedule will allow your body to let off pent up stressful energy. It is also a good idea to sleep on schedule. Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time. It is hard to cope with stress when you are tired... give yourself credit for all the effort you put into trading. It is tempting to feel good about your efforts only when they pay off. But you put in just as much effort putting on a losing trade as a winning trade... Finally, it is useful to imagine the worst. Many times we are afraid to look at the worst-case scenario, but it is often less stressful to consider the worst. What we tend to do instead is think that a catastrophe is about to happen. It lurks in the back of our mind as a vague and amorphous threat... don't let stress get the better of you. You can take steps to reduce stress, and if you do, you'll find you'll trade more calmly and profitably.

Developing Your Psychological Edge - Many novice traders get bogged down because they focus on making big profits, and the status and respect that may go with them. There's a disadvantage that comes with taking such an approach, however. You end up putting extra pressure on yourself to perform beyond your skill level, and when you do that, you usually choke under the pressure. It is better to focus on the process of trading.

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. - - Ayn Rand

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. - - William Faulkner

Disappointment and Regret: The Other Trading Emotions - Humans tend to overstate the adverse effects of a dreaded outcome. And there are a few simple strategies we can use to control these emotions. For example, if we control our risk on the trade, and plan it out carefully, the risk will be minimized and the actual potential loss will not be catastrophic at all. Another way to minimize disappointment and regret is to try to impersonalize the trade. Think in terms of probabilities, "This is just one of many trades. The outcome of this single trade means nothing. The big picture is all that counts." By reminding yourself of the relative insignificance of a single trade, you'll minimize the potential regret should you lose. Similarly, it's also important to avoid over-interpreting the significance of a trade; a single losing trade (or even a few losing trades) doesn't mean that you have poor trading skills; it may just be a run of bad luck. There's no point in making the outcome of a trade symbolic of your skills as a trader.

Mistakes are the usual bridge between inexperience and wisdom. - - Phyllis Therous

Trading Fears - Underlying many trading fears is a need for extreme perfectionism. If we believe that we must always be competent, we will expend all our precious psychological energy mulling over the negative consequences of failing, rather than focusing on what we are doing in the here-and-now to implement our current trading plan. Traders who believe they must be thoroughly competent spend too much of their time worrying about what they did wrong, what may go wrong, and how they will recover should they fail. These thoughts are distracting and obscure the flow of immediate experience, and the ability to read current market activity with unfailing accuracy.

Be Flexible Enough to Stand Aside - Trading profitably requires that you monitor the market moods and your psychological moods. When either one is not conducive to trading, it's best to stand aside and wait for the situation to change. Don't make the mistake of thinking you should trade even in these potentially debilitating conditions. By staying out of the markets, you can survive to trade another day, when you're in a peak performance mental state and the market conditions are optimal.

Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going. - - Jim Ryun

* Sticking to the Plan - People who are controlled and disciplined in everyday life, ironically, tend to have trouble sticking with trading plans. Disciplined people are rule followers, and research studies have shown that rule followers prefer certainty. However, anyone who has traded the markets for a few months soon realizes that the markets are not certain, and conventional wisdom is not consistently valid.

As it turns out, people who are more impulsive in everyday life have less difficulty following a trading plan. They view trading as a "game" and they enjoy risk. These kinds of people truly don't care what happens. They have a natural, carefree attitude when it comes to trading.