I changed the way i thought about what was a successful trade. It didn't matter if I made money on the trade or not. What mattered was whether I followed the plan. Rate yourself by whether you followed your plan. Write down your reason for not following the plan. Write it down so you can review the reasons after a couple weeks of trading.
%% TOP TRADER books, battle tested plan, may help you, by Jack Schwager may help. I never got much out of Douglas psychobable, but any book may have one thing in it?? Actually a huge number of SPY, SPXL ,QQQ, SQQQ charts could help; since you have to learn /cant predict. Losing money could also help prove what cant work. WHEN all else fail try trading with normal size + trading a % of your investments. IF you have no uptrending bull market investments , may want to start with 1 share of SPY or SSO................................................................................... Sounds like you have a problem with sticking to a plan; 1 SPY or SSO may help until you proved what an uptrending bull market is.So few traders make money/ learn how to invest also......................................................................................................................
Sorry -- YES Douglas DOES --reveals and teaches in his book how to stick to rules and make it a habit. (I have no reason to hype his book or benefit from your obtaining the book.) Please do not denigrate the book until you have spent a few hours reading it. Have you read the book to determine how Douglas answers your concerns.
Check out Rande Howell on YouTube he's been in the business for years and he's a great guy who has some excellent information on trading and mindfulness. Disclaimer: reading and watching videos may help you however nothing is going to compare to real life trading. If you wanted to learn how to swim - you can read about it or go watch people do it etc.... but everything changes once you hit the water. Best Wishes!
This reminds me of that old joke about economists. If you put 10 economists in a room, you'll get 11 opinions... Everyone will give you an answer based on what works for them. So find what works for you. You are the person behind the trade; pulling the trigger, therefore your solution to the mental game will be personal. Lots of good suggestions... But for me personally: First and foremost Mark Douglas. "Trading in the Zone" transformed me from a mental wreck to a professional trader, that and a lot of help behind the scenes from a couple of very important people here on ET. Secondly I found Jared Tendlers "Mental game of Trading" to be of enourmous help. I tell people that I've helped that Mark Douglas tells you what is wrong, Tendler tells you how to fix it. Couldn't recommend these two books highly enough. They help you to develop a probability based mindset, and give you a framework to continually assess and improve. As Douglas said: "Trading is a pattern repetition numbers game"... The rest is repetition. There are practical exercises you can do to imprint a probability based mindset, reach out if you want more info on that. Finally, as an aside, I found a few points in "Thinking in Bets" by Annie Duke useful as well... Good Luck! The rewards are there if you put the work in /fin
%% Thanks; i like the homegroWn psychology of a hand written note on my refrig\ LET PROFITS run................................................................................................. And Art Cashin said ''panic seller never win!!'' Interesting name = ''cashin'' /LOL
+2 Following a plan is what matters the most. And not getting psyched out on what might or what did happen to the trade after you followed your trading plan. Discipline is key!