Unconscious Incompetence

This is where most beginners start off. You heard many good things about trading and have seen many “millionaires” on social media. You start thinking to yourself, “what can be so hard?”, “price is either up or down, I can do this, but I don’t know how”. It’s a stage where you want to learn but have zero knowledge about trading.

Conscious Incompetence

Traders in this stage now understand that they need to learn. Guided by the thought that the more trading knowledge they have, the better they will be able to trade, new traders will try to put what they have learned from books, articles, DVDs, and forums into practice.

Traders in the conscious incompetence stage believe that the more trading knowledge they have, the better they will be able to trade.

The AHA Moment

A trader in this stage will begin to enter and exit the markets whenever their system tells them to, without judgment and despite the emotion they are feeling. Traders in the awakening moment will realise that successful trading comes down to the psychology of the trader and their approach to the markets.

Conscious Competence

A trader who has reached the conscious competence level will have progressed to the point where they stop trying to “pick” the winning trades. Whenever the system dictates that a position should be opened, they do so despite how the trader feels about it.

During the conscious competence stage, it still takes effort to be disciplined; however, losing trades will be easier to deal with because the trader understands it is part of their system.

Unconscious Competence

A trader is said to have reached the stage of unconscious competence once they have traded with so much practice that they can trade in an almost automatic mindset. A disciplined approach requires very little effort and has become second nature.