Hey guys! I constantly see posts about psychology and discipline in trading. Some of you say “OMG, I went against my rules again”, “Oh no! The market punished me for lack of discipline,” etc. etc. The question is - how come people do not want to accept the very simple task of “following simple rules"? We all get in habit of following daily rule-based routine, so why not do the same in trading? What if you follow your system constantly for the next six months may you see your trading results improved too? Here are a couple of things that work personally for me. 1. Go to bed early and get up early 2. Daily exercise, walk at least 3 miles a day 3. Do not eat junk food, don’t smoke, don’t drink alcohol, but rather drink water 4. Do charity, don’t be greedy. Market doesn't take everything away. It gives back for those who are ready to give. 5. Do not waste your energy for criticism. Stop complaining. 6.Throw all sugar out of the house 7. Be consistent with your trading journal. Write down all your trades in Excel every day, making remarks as to whether they were emotional/systematic, etc. You can cite many more simple rules here, which in fact turn out to be not simple at all. If you cannot follow the rules you've set for yourself, how will you become a disciplined trader? That is the very reason we are paying our money to all kinds of experts. Experts in trading, couches in losing weight, couches that help us quit smoking, and many more. You come to one of those gurus and all you hear is: "You need to observe risk management, don’t make a lot of trades, trade with the trend. Now off you go. $5000 for my counselling, please”. Honestly, gurus are just selling you what you want to buy. The point is - if you do not follow simple rules in trading, all you're left with is hoping for luck, but unfortunately you're won't be the lucky one. What do you think?
Fear ,Greed and other emotions get in the way. The market plays games with you. Take out stops and reverses; runs away from you when you are looking for an entry; keeps dropping when you give it a little more wiggle room then reverses when you can't stand the pain anymore. Unrealistic expectations from successful traders and internet bull shitters. Turn a few dollars into a fortune from the comfort of your home or even the beach without doing any work. Click, click, click; trading is easy! Rules; We don't need no stinking rules!! The simple stuff like having a trading plan, being adequately funded, keeping losses small, that doesn't apply to me; I'll be able to buy the secret if I can just find the right mentor.
Suppose your paycheck was based on percent entry triggers correctly taken? https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...ercent-entry-triggers-correctly-taken.343345/ How well you can execute 100 trades in a row?
First, Ive never paid a couch to show me how to lose weight. Second, everything gets thrown out the window when you are dealing with something that is essentially your livelihood. Your argument is like saying "hey, you got a girl, just dont cheat. Simple rule!" Until that fat assed chick strolls up to you and starts twerkin in your face and giving you the "fuck me" eyes. What is said in theory is hardly ever practiced in reality. And the ones that can do it have been doing it for a little while. Same concept of book smarts and street smarts. Same theory as everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Its human behavior and no amount of "rules" is going to change that fact.
Right. It is simple but not easy. But please don't throw away the sugar. Give it to me. I can use it to brew beer. I can use it to generate Carbon dioxide for my aquatic plants.
I think that in my case, it primarily has to do with two things: Comprehension Confidence Do I understand exactly how the system functions? Is it crystal clear to me how and why it is supposed to work? If so, I'm not going to violate the rules because acting in such a way is not going to make any sense to me at all. And to what degree do I believe in the approach? The closer I am to being 100% confident in a system, the less likely I am to go against it. If I feel it is essentially guaranteed to work, to do anything that is not completely in harmony with it tends to feel just plain stupid.
Do this, do that. You have to do this. You must not do that. I started trading years ago to become more free. Where is the fun in your activity when you just follow an endless string of self-imposed external rules ? How long can you follow such a dictatorship of your life ? It is ok to follow a few major guidelines in the beginning. But if you want to master an art, sooner or later you have to throw all external, rigid rules over board. You have to be willing, you have to be hungry to experiment, to find your own way. This means a lot of work, of course. But if you really love what you do, it wont matter. You will thrive on on that work, you will enjoy it. People who dont feel this passion in their endeavor, people who dont love what they do, usually dont last very long, no matter if it is trading, sports training, a career, diet or whatever. You have only one life. Make it as enjoyable as possible. Make your own rules, your own schedule. Allow yourself to experiment, in an intelligent way. But your own way.
I essentially agree with this. When you make your own rules you understand how the system works better than anyone else on the planet, and if it is valid, you will (or should) have an extremely high level of confidence in its reliability.