I have a tendency to get cocky, when making a lot of successful trades in a row. I then increase the amount I bet and bet outside the optimum. What do you all do to stay disciplined? I'm in the process of trying to automate as many of my systems as I can (mainly to remove my emotional involvement), but some of my trades are much more difficult to automate than others.
Follow your rules. Don't bet outside the optimum. Punish yourself for violating your rules. Reward yourself for following them.
Automation is a very effective method that keeps one staying disciplined. Another way is to constantly remind you the losses that you have incurred when you were undisciplined by posting the loss statement in a conspicuous place like in front of the computer screen that you use to trade.
Hey, I know that feeling too. That euphoric feeling you get when you hit 5 straight winners in a row. You feel like you are the GOD of trading and you can do no wrong haha!. I'll share the answer how I fixed my "discipline" problem. Put simply, I journal my trades MANUALLY and in great detail. I have the trade information and thoughts about why I put on or take off the trade. Too many trading behavior problems get categorized under the word "discipline". The first step is to clearly identify what triggers the negative pattern of behavior and you can only do it reliably by journaling. Once you clearly identify the triggers, you can take steps to overcome. By reading my journal regularly, I will be reminded that losses in my system WILL occur and you should be able to keep yourself in check. Hope this helps. Another thing that I do is write out my trading rules and read them before I trade each day. This helps me to "internalize" the rules.
can you reflect on some of those that you discovered ? Like FOMO even if one is doing well ? ( doen't sound rational tho )
Practice, practice and more practice with a small position size in real money trading. Yet, even if you're automated...you will not be able to remove your emotional involvement because your automation is still dependent upon you to turn the switch on/off. Regardless, there's less emotional involvement in trading via automation in comparison to a trader clicking the buy/sell button in their trade execution platform but both still involves the trader interacting with the markets...the gateway into the emotions. wrbtrader
Say NO to emotions, just keep all your records in a journal with good analytics. Then check how much you lose when you "get cocky" and decide if it worth it or not.