Part One: Why "Knowing You Have to Wait, but Can't Do It"? - Six Major Roots

1. Human Nature vs. Trading Discipline
· Instinct: The human brain is naturally averse to uncertainty (risk) and loss (losing money). When the market fluctuates, the brain's "amygdala" (fear center) triggers the "fight or flight" response, prompting you to take action to end this state of stress.
· Discipline: Waiting requires the calm and rational prefrontal cortex to restrain instincts. This is as difficult as combating physiological responses.
2. Misunderstanding of "opportunity" and fear of missing out (FOMO)
· You are afraid of missing any "possible" profit opportunity. You think, "What if this is the big market? What if I don't get in and everyone else makes money?" This fear is harder for you to bear than the loss itself.
3. Lack of clear, quantifiable, and actionable "waiting standards"
· "Waiting" is a vague concept. Until when? What signal counts as having "waited enough"? Without clear rules like those in legal texts (for example: price breaks above the 20-day moving average and trading volume increases by 1.5 times), your waiting has no endpoint, and your patience will naturally be exhausted.
4. Overly focusing on account profits and losses rather than the trading process.
· Your eyes are always fixated on the fluctuating numbers of profit and loss, and your emotions dance along with the digits. A single loss will make you doubt your judgment, prompting you to rush to "correct the mistake" by acting prematurely. You view "waiting" as a cost (time cost, opportunity cost) rather than a part of your strategy.
5. Boredom and a Lack of Self-Worth
· Waiting is tedious. The act of trading itself brings excitement and a sense of control of "I am doing something." Doing nothing can make you feel worthless, unlike an "active trader."
6. The trading system is immature or lacks confidence.
· Deep down, you do not fully trust your trading system. When the market experiences a bit of noise, you start to doubt the system's effectiveness, leading you to abandon waiting and rely on temporary "intuition."

Part Two: How to Transition from "Knowing" to "Doing"? - Actionable Solutions

1. Systematize and formalize "waiting" (the most crucial step)

· Define clear entry signals: Write your waiting conditions as specific, indisputable rules. For example: "Do not enter the market until conditions A, B, and C are all met."
· Define the "no trading" market conditions: equally important. Clearly specify what kind of market situations (e.g., sideways market, before important data releases, during low trading volume) you "absolutely do not trade". This effectively gives "waiting" a positive mission - to avoid junk market conditions.

2. Create a trading checklist and pre-plan

· Before the market opens, make all analyses based on your system and write down today's plan: "If the price reaches X, I will do Y; otherwise, I will stand by." During the trading session, your only task is to execute the plan, not to make decisions.

3. Shift your focus and manage the trading environment

· Stay away from the screen: Set price alerts instead of constantly watching the market. Go read, exercise, or do other work.
· Reduce the number of decisions: Shift from high-frequency trading to low-frequency, high-confidence trading. Limit the maximum number of trades per day/week, forcing you to choose only the best opportunities.
· Review trading logs: Focus on recording and analyzing the trades where you "did not wait." Calculate how much loss you would have avoided and how much profit you would have captured if you strictly followed the waiting rule. The data will give you the strongest confidence.

4. Engage in deliberate mindset training

· Redefining "success": a perfect, rule-compliant "wait" and "empty position" is a successful trade. Profit is a byproduct of correct execution.
· Accepting "missing out" is part of the strategy: your system is not designed to catch every market movement. Missing out is inevitable, just like a fisherman won't catch every fish with his net. If you miss an opportunity, the market will always present you with another one.
· Small-scale practice: Conduct a one-month "pure rule execution" training with very small positions (or on a demo account). The goal is not to make money, but to "plan your trades and trade your plan," experiencing the sense of calm that comes from strictly adhering to discipline.

5. Build a positive feedback loop

· When you avoid a major drop by patiently waiting, or when you wait for the perfect signal and easily profit, give yourself a loud shout-out! Connect the pleasure of "discipline leading to good results" with the act of "waiting." Your brain will gradually come to enjoy this feeling.

Core mindset shift

From: "I am waiting, so I did nothing, I am very anxious."
It becomes: "I am perfectly executing the most critical part of my trading strategy - filtering out risks and low-quality opportunities. The work I am doing now (waiting) is just as important, if not more valuable, than the moment I pull the trigger."

Final reminder:
Not being able to wait essentially reflects a lack of trust in one's own trading system, or that the system itself has ambiguities. The greatest traders possess extraordinary patience not because of superhuman willpower, but due to their absolute faith in a proven system and the habit of completely mechanizing and depersonalizing the execution process.

Start by improving and refining your rules, turning the vague instruction of "need to wait" into clear and automated guidelines, just like "stop at red light, go at green light." There are no shortcuts on this road, but every step counts.