The purpose of this thread is to allow others to give me some feedback as to how to best transition from SIM to live. I have put more years than I ever thought would be needed into learning how to trade(over 5 years).. Have been live a couple of times and went back to SIM after some losses.. Never blew an account.. but saw a few losses and went back to study. I have had some real ahas along the way and no need to get into them here. I considerable myself a discretionary trader with some very sound knowledge in several areas of trading.. including using price action, auction theory, and volume and volume profile. I trade ES, YM, and CL primarily. I have trading plans developed and tested in these markets and have demonstrated significant edges. I can trade in SIM to the point where a losing day is a rare event and extracting money from the market comes from following my plans very routinely. Here is my problem.. I have not been successful at trading live up to this point and I am scared of another failed attempt. Part of my problem before was poorly defined plans and part was inability to follow the plan. I would say inability to follow my plans were my biggest issues and contributed the most.. although some of the plans were not all that great either. So I really feel there is nothing else to learn technically or test.. I need to go live. My plans can trade a single contract and make $$, so I can trade a single contract for risk control. I also have a DLL limit set to cut me off if I spiral out of control. I have some mind techniques now I did not have before as well. So here are some options I am considering: 1. Trade my plan in a single market until my DLL or profit goal is hit. I hit the profit goal in SIM more than 90% of time. 2. Ease into live by taking 1-3 trades per day per plan to build confidence and prove to myself I can follow my plan live and it works and losses will not kill me. Whatever 1-3 trades gives me, I take and quit for the day. 3. Do a combine. This puts some skin in the game and demonstrates I can follow a plan but limits downside risks. I have ruled this out because it only delays my transition to live and I have no intention of trading others money. 4. Trade some micro lots live. This would get me back into live trading with less risk, but I have no experience with trading currencies or their futures and no plan. I do not want t trade them longer term anyhow, so I have ruled out this option. So are there any additional ideas or thoughts others would like to pose? I did not want to post for sake of brevity what is behind my fear. but it is wrapped around fear of losses cascading into being a loser at this.. so therefore SIM for life ensures I never lose.. I have come to grips with this and know I have to dive in and test the water.. regardless how deep or how cold it may become. Thanks
You have much of your post screaming I am going to lose no matter what I do. If I were you, go for couple weeks of hypnosis to attack your fear of being successful as I have often found others like you and myself many years ago. Our brain is use to doing what it feels happiest, so when you have profitable trades, brain is saying it is not use to this feelings and give you much pain of staying in this situation, brain will often find the worst setups for you to take to feel content, so it isn't the system that is losing, often times traders I have mentored, this been their hugest problems. Doesn't take much to develop good enough systems, and what is hardest is not changing systems on every trade, you have to accept it not going to get any better than this DURING trading hours. Accepting is very tough as we all think better than ourselves to follow a plan we made. I do hypnosis 3-4 times a year then my brain is happy. Wish you much profits, sound like you have developed good Trading Plan, now make "da monie", instead of excuses of why you can't.
Thanks Handle.. Can you tell me about the hypnosis in a little more detail. Is it done in person? What am I trying to accomplish with it? Overcoming the fear of losses or failure? Elimination of some self limiting beliefs? Where do I find these people and is it important to have ones that know about the issues surrounding emotions and trading? Thanks for your time to reply.
You should expose it..., get it out into the light...., acknowledge / embrace / then..., get a handle on it Only way to defuse / de-energize it ================ We all had fear..., have fear..., will have fear - every one of us =============== As for losing creating said fear I have multiple losing trades nearly every day - multiples of them Either..., I allow them to control me..., or I control them ================= I am a trader - placing and managing trades is what I do I cannot control which trades lose..., but I can certainly control how much..., each losing trade - loses So can you RN
I agree w/ RN. Discuss your fears and the mental training/steps you've taken to try to develop the proper mindset. Are you paying attention to your body language before and during trades ? Fear of being a loser ? Maybe try some books on conquering the Inner Critic. Helped me. Also "With Winning in Mind" by Lanny Bassham offers some great ideas about sports psychology that can be applied to trading. BTW, you've gotten advice from two of the nicest and most knowledgeable traders here (RN & Handle) If NoDoji shows up you will have hit the trifecta on your very first post ! Good luck to you. I look forward to seeing your progress. Still working on getting there myself. PS Make a pledge to yourself that you will become the trader you want to be. Fully commit ! jas
Thanks RN.... Do you have any techniques you could recommend for de energizing and dealing with those fears? Thanks again.
I can relate. I once asked my mentor his opinion about the idea that one should keep the same mindset and emotions whether in a trade or not. He simply said that it's impossible. . .Wait--that wasn't in the brochure when I signed up. Oh well I guess I'll just have to live with uncomfortable feelings just like everyone else. How much am I creating those feelings anyway? What's my part in it? Is it the market or me?How much has my past conditioning created self sabotage? Am I willing to expand or do I just feel more comfortable as I am. I like myself and don't all at the same time.
You might be a loser. And if you are, quit and move on. Being scared to find out is natural. Acting on this fear is irrational as it squanders your most valuable asset: time. Trade live, and if your results deviate from simulation this likely shows a problem with your ability to execute. This may not be something you are able to fix. See it as paying to find out the truth. If you are trading 1 contract this will cost you at most a few weeks and a few thousand dollars. You will be profitable, or not, but either way you will know what to do next. "discretionary trader with some very sound knowledge in several areas of trading.. including using price action, auction theory, and volume and volume profile. I trade ES, YM, and CL primarily." This doesn't sound good. Especially choice of products. Things which end up well tend to start well (credit Scott Adams). It is rare for something to start badly and end very successfully. If I had to bet I'd say you're being fooled by randomness. There will be a lot you don't know that you don't know. Your P/L tells you the truth and is probably the only thing you should pay attention to at this point. Based on what you have written is seems worth to find out if you can continue to generate the positive results you have talked about. If you cannot, then you should do something else. Of course there will be many here who try to lead you further on...most of them are professional posters with 4 digit post counts and probably 4 digit accounts if they even still trade.
Yup..., and it free First must identify the root of the fear - on the surface it appears as losing (always does)..., chances are it goes much deeper Take pencil and paper in hand At the top - list one topic..., for instance - I am scared Below this - list all the reasons you are scared Then take each of the reasons - one by one - Place it at the top of a sheet - and below that list out all its becauses Once you can go no further (drilling down) - that is your root cause of fear Fix it And by fixing it - does not mean eliminate it - necessarily It does mean becoming at peace with it =============== Do this in an non disruptive / quiet setting Will take deep introspect..., and complete honesty RN
Your fear problem is huge...big enough where you can not fix it by yourself. Thus, you need professional help from the outside...someone that deals with psychology and fear. Many top athletes eventually get a "sports psychologist" to help them embrace their fear, manage their fear so that it is minimized during competition...resulting in them taking their game to the next level (e.g. Lebron James, Wayne Gretzky, Muhammad Ali, Pele, Alex Bilodeau, Simon Fourcarde, Tiger Woods). Heck, many professional teams have their own staff sports psychologists. Just the same, many world famous individuals have a fear issue about giving speeches and couldn't fix the problem on their own. They too had to hire outside help to help them deal with the fear issue (e.g Warren Buffett, Bruce Willis, Julia Roberts, Winston Churchhill). Nothing to be ashamed about. Get help, make some phone calls, get recommendations from friends especially if trading is something you want to make a career out of. Yet, if this is just a serious hobby...asking for help at an anonymous trading forum is ok but if you're trying to trade for a living...get some real help to deal with that discipline problem that develops when you trade with real money... Do this before your very next trade. Just don't stay inside that vicious circle that you'll trade again with real money after making promises to yourself to follow your trading plan considering this has been an ongoing problem for you for many years.