The Mental Shortcut for Sharper Trading, USD/CHF and Gold Trades, & More

Trade of the Week

Let’s go through two trades taken over the past week: Gold (long) and USD/CHF (long).

If you want to learn how to execute precise trades like this for yourself, check out the Duomo Trader Development Program.

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The Mental Shortcut for Sharper Trading

Have you ever replayed an argument in your head, and felt the same anger or frustration as if it was happening in real-time? Or imagined a high-risk situation so vividly that your palms started sweating?

That’s the power of mental imagery.

Your brain struggles to tell the difference between real experiences and vividly imagined ones. And if used correctly, this can become one of your biggest advantages in trading.

Studies on mental practice show:

• It improves performance even without real-world practice.
• When combined with physical practice, it accelerates improvement.
• It benefits experienced individuals more than beginners.
• Its effects fade quickly unless repeated consistently.

Athletes have used this for decades. The world’s top performers mentally rehearse their successful performance before it happens.

But most traders don’t use visualisation at all.

Or when they do, it’s not beneficial. They replay past mistakes.

Try this…

Before your next trading session, don’t just sit down and start analysing the charts. Take a few minutes to visualise yourself executing to perfection.

Mentally walk through your process. Imagine the ideal situation you’re waiting for, and the steps you’d follow to assess the opportunity and plan the trade.

If you already know where you tend to make mistakes or the situations that trigger negative responses, spend more time visualising those moments.

The more you train your mind for high performance, the more naturally it will happen when you need it most.

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Train to Be at Your Best When You Feel Your Worst

Our brains are sneaky bastards when it comes to keeping us in our comfort zones. Most of the time, we don’t even realise we’re doing it.

There are moments when the choice is obvious… Push yourself or stay comfortable. You know that skipping the gym, avoiding a tough conversation, or putting off a challenge means choosing the easy way out.

But other times, the choice isn’t as obvious. You’re just “too busy” or “too tired.” It doesn’t feel like an active decision, until the consequences catch up with you later.

This happens all the time in trading.

Most traders are learning alongside a full-time job, which means their trading work happens in the evenings or at weekends. After a long day, skipping a practice session or cutting corners on back-testing doesn’t seem like a big deal. But over time, this can compound into an actual limitation that will affect your trading.

A key ingredient for long-term success in any skill is grit. This is something I’ve spoken about many times before.

Psychologist Angela Duckworth defines grit as “passion and perseverance for long-term goals.” It’s the ability to stay committed to something difficult, even when progress is slow, motivation drops, and you experience setbacks.

One important aspect of grit is the ability to perform at your best when you feel your worst.

Think about Michael Jordan’s famous flu game. Despite being physically wrecked, he still delivered at the highest level. It’s that ability to show up and execute even under the worst conditions.

But it’s not just an innate trait. It’s a skill you can train.

This matters for your trading, because there will be moments in your career that push you to your limits. A brutal losing streak or period of bad performance. A big trade suddenly not going to plan. Difficult market conditions.

These are the moments that cause traders to spiral, and even quit.

So next time you’re exhausted, unmotivated, or tempted to skip your session… Reframe that moment. See it as a gift. It’s a chance to develop your grit.

And the truth is, you’re not just improving your trading in those moments. You’re also training yourself to deliver, no matter the circumstances, in other areas of life.

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Winning the Decisive Moments

James Clear has a great concept he refers to as decisive moments. The seemingly small decisions that shape the entire trajectory of your day (and life).

Imagine this:

You planned to review your trades at the weekend.

When you wake up on Saturday morning you decide to play a game for half an hour before you get started.

You lose track of time and half an hour becomes 4 hours.

You’re starving so you decide to order pizza.

The pizza makes you tired, so you don’t feel like reviewing your trades yet. You put on Netflix.

It gets to evening time and you tell yourself you’ll do it tomorrow instead.

You scroll social media and end up staying up later than you should.

The next day you wake up late and feel tired. You tell yourself you’ll start your trading work when you wake up a bit.

You load up your game…

You get the idea. We’ve all been through situations like this in one way or another.

Although this is a series of bad decisions, the decisive moment was choosing to play the game for half an hour.

You see, research suggests that up to 50% of our daily actions are driven by habits, not conscious decisions. That decisive moment was a trigger that lead to a series of habitual behaviours.

If you want to change the trajectory of your days (and your life!) you need to focus on winning the battle of those decisive moments.

Here are some tips:

Use the 2-minute rule.

If you don’t feel like doing something (e.g. back-testing), don’t try and do a full session. Instead, commit to just 2 minutes. The hardest part is starting… Once you begin, you’ll likely keep going.

Stop when you’re still in the zone.

Ernest Hemingway had a trick for writing: he’d always stop for the day when he still wanted to keep going. This builds momentum and makes it easier to start again next time. The same applies to trading work. End your session while you’re still switched on, not when you’re drained. Finish on a high.

Scale up gradually.

Instead of forcing yourself to follow extreme plans, shape your habits in phases. Start with small wins, then build them up over time. Consistency beats intensity.

Success isn’t about one big effort-it’s about stacking small wins, day after day. Win the decisive moments and the rest will be inevitable.