The Uncertainty Principle

If there is such a thing as a secret to the nature of trading, this is it:
At the very core of one’s ability 1) to trade without fear or overconfidence,
2) perceive what the market is offering from its perspective,
3) stay completely focused in the “now moment opportunity flow,”
and 4) spontaneously enter the “zone,” it is a strong virtually unshakeable
belief in an uncertain outcome with an edge in your favor.
The best traders have evolved to the point where they believe,
without a shred of doubt or internal conflict, that “anything can happen.”
They don’t just suspect that anything can happen or give lip
service to the idea. Their belief in uncertainty is so powerful that it
actually prevents their minds from associating the “now moment” situation
and circumstance with the outcomes of their most recent
trades. By preventing this association, they are able to keep their minds
free of unrealistic and rigid expectations about how the market will
express itself. Instead of generating the kind of unrealistic expectations
that more often than not result in both emotional and financial
pain, they have learned to “make themselves available” to take advantage
of whatever opportunities the market may offer in any given
moment.
“Making yourself available” is a perspective from which you
understand that the framework from which you are perceiving information
is limited relative to what’s being offered. Our minds don’t
automatically perceive every opportunity that presents itself in any
given moment. (The “boy and the dog” illustration from Chapter 5 is
a perfect example of how our own personal versions of the truth are
reflected back to us.)
This same land of perceptual blindness happens all the time in
trading. We can’t perceive the potential for the market to continue to
move in a direction that is already against our position if, for example,
we are operating out of a fear of being wrong. The fear of admitting
we are wrong causes us to place an inordinate amount of
significance on information that tells us that we’re right. This happens
even if there’s ample information to indicate that the market has
in fact established a trend in the opposite direction of our position. A
trending market is a distinction about the market’s behavior we can
ordinarily perceive, but this distinction can easily become invisible if
we are operating out of fear. The trend and the opportunity to trade
in the direction of that trend don’t become visible until we are out of
the trade.
In addition, there are opportunities that are invisible to us
because we haven’t learned to make the distinctions that would
allow us to perceive them. Recall our discussion in Chapter 5 of the
first price chart you ever looked at. What we haven’t learned yet is
invisible to us, and remains invisible until our minds are open to an
exchange of energy.
A perspective from which you make yourself available takes into
consideration both the known and the unknown: For example, you’ve
built a mental framework that allows you to recognize a set of variables
in the markets behavior that indicates when an opportunity to
buy or sell is present. This is your edge and something you know.
However, what you don’t know is exactly how the pattern your variables
identify will unfold.
With the perspective of making yourself available, you know
that your edge places the odds of success in your favor, but, at the
same time, you completely accept the fact that you don’t know the
outcome of any particular trade. By making yourself available, you
consciously open yourself up to find out what will happen next;
instead of giving way to an automatic mental process that causes you
to think you already know. Adopting this perspective leaves your mind
free of internal resistance that can prevent you from perceiving whatever
opportunity the market is making available from its perspective
(its truth). Your mind is open for an exchange of energy. Not only can
you learn something about the market that you previously didn’t
know, but you also set up the mental condition most conducive to
entering “the zone.”

-Mark Douglas, “Trading in The Zone” p.88-89