You've got good advise from people who know. However, IMO, Handle hit it on the nose... it's fear of being successful. The mind works simplistically. Hot/cold, good/bad, win/lose. If X is true, Y can not be true. Everyone focused on fear on failing. Reread Handle's post. Also FWIW: the exercise RN has given is worth fulfillment and satisfaction in every area of your life, not only trading. Good trading to you
Yes, done in person, I give him/her areas I want them to go over so as to overcome in my life, most are to do better overall in life and some to continue in my trading and developing new ideas. What comes to YOUR mind first, fear of losing or fear of change? Success is change, not to say you are losing in life, but if you won a lottery for 20 million bucks, wouldn't you life change? Some are under Hypnotherapy, Google it in your home town "Self-Confidence, Motivation, Self-Image, Stress, Anger, Frustration, Worry, Guilt, Forgiveness, Nail Biting, Anxiety, Assertiveness, Public Speaking, Memory, Concentration, Lower Blood Pressure, Smoking, Stage Fright, Reaching Goals, Procrastination, Changing Habits, Improving Sales, Attitude Adjustment, Career Success, Test Anxiety, Relationship Enhancement, Nausea, Surgical Recovery, Tardiness, Gambling, Performance Anxiety, Perfectionism, Lack of Initiative, Self Expression, Hopelessness, Negativism, Death or Loss" This and more are what those with experience can work on, what you want to overcome.
I ain't so sure fear is a psychological disorder that can only be cured by a shrink as most of the posters seem to imply. Fear, as far as trading is concerned, is proportional to confidence. Once you begin to make money, your confidence will also grow. As you build more confidence, your fear will go away on its own. So as long as you burn money, your fear will always remain. Hence, my advice is to go back to the drawing table and locate just where the problem rests and address the problem accordingly. I can definitely say out of experience that when you consistently lose money due to poor discipline, it's largely due to trading on instinct. "Gut trading" is the fastest way to land you in the poorhouse. You'll need to find a profitable strategy and rigorously stick to it.
I agree with your post, shrinks I had as students, all failed to adhere to rules, but often times most doctors were same way as they thought they knew better of how trading should be. I would always ask what can I take to get rid of common cold and they said basically time, so I would say with the mountain of education, time is the answer? Same with trading, time is the answer of waiting for clear cut signal, time of so long to get to breakeven plus a tick, time of price bouncing on target before taking tick less. Don't get in early, watch the Dome for better pricing or Dome shows not to take trade at all, but too often they "just have that feeling". And this goes to show me shrinks can't show me how to be a better trader and must go deeper into my subconscious to fix all the problems of why my screwed up childhood said it is better to give than receive. So if you were bought up in strict religious upbringing, you might have problems dealing with making too much money or becoming too successful. As funny as this seems to be, it is very true that it is driven into some of us that when your brain thinks it has too much, you need to give it away and brain will give you pain till you do the right thing or take losses. So subconsciously, I had to overcome this pain which also kept me back when I go into businesses. Eventually, got rid of religion but devout believe of God. Man made religions, man is inferior and causes much pains, and made religions as way to control other men. You will never lose fear, but you can make it more of a friend than a foe, keep good journal of your fears. But nothing like a good trading system that goes with your personality.
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 Sir: Trading is a performance based undertaking. We must perform. Because we are influenced by greed, self delusion and ego (self centered behavior) we are afraid to perform. We want to be right, we want to earn but we dont want to risk.... So we trade on sim, there is no loss here. And we can cheat on sim by just starting over. But this is a mind ----. some one told me a while ago to work hard to trade just ONE technique, or just ONE pattern. No matter how you want to take a jump in trade, with no signal, stop the temptation. This is same old behavior. Learn one technique, look for it exclusively to appear, watch it begin to come to you on MTFrames, look for that opportune entry on a lower time frame. Just focus on this one technique, dont jump, let the market appear and come to your plan. Enter the trade, know your target, and KNOW where this trade can not go. Take your profit based on a fib or whatever you decide. Record the trade, record your emotion during the trade. Then begin to look for the same pattern again. Control your emotion, DO NOT BE TEMPTED TO TAKE JUMP IN TRADES. And you can be consistent with your one technique, and begin to build real confidence. But follow this plan no matter how many opportunities you think you see to Jump In. Soon you will see your technique coming and you can enter live with ease based on your successful past performance. Good Luck and DONT QUIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"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." It sounds to me like you have developed an edge and are barely able to follow it in SIM? If at the end of the day you see things differently then you did live in the market as far as your method goes then likely your issue is a deep psychological one. You have already received some great advice here. What happens is the market triggers something deep inside from the time your ego was being developed to protect you- And that something is telling you that "You SUCK". You need to go deep- You need to face those core beliefs and observe and understand them. If you have these issues with SIM they will only intensify live. Once you deal with the personality psychological issues you can deal with the technical issues later- fills- spreads etc later in live. IMHO looking external to add something to your method will only delay the journey that now you need to embark. Your post resonated with me because it sounded identical to my story. The journey for me has been life changing. I apologize in advance this will likely be a very long post. First give yourself a huge amount of credit- Credit for developing a method with an edge- for trusting yourself to do so. Thank yourself for having the balls to post this publically, and thank yourself for admitting that there is probably something deeper you need to change before going live because you have just saved a lot of cash. Trading is about believing in yourself as has been noted. It was helpful to me to understand how all this shit works. Ego- Subconscious and emotions. Living from inside vs outside fulfillment. Here are my suggestions to start. 1. Attend a hypnosis show- If you don't have one locally take a trip to Vegas. I saw the Anthony Cools show years ago- laughed my ass off- But that is not your purpose. Try to mingle with the crowd before the show - You will want to prove to yourself that there are not any planted participants in the crowd. If you don't want to do that talk to the participants afterwards and look at the reactions of the friends or relatives closest to them to see their reactions. Do this to reassure yourself that what you witnessed is the truth to what I am about to share. The folks that get selected in the group will display what is possible without the ego present. The ego is there to protect us it was built during childhood and depending on the traumas in your being raised it will be weaker or stronger. The folks with the weaker egos will be on the stage. Depending on the show you will hear granular details of their life that a few minutes earlier they would never remember. As the show progresses you will likely see participants asked to leave- The reason I suspect is that as they progress the next task kicks the ego back in and they fall out. The lesson for me was huge - I had the benefit years ago of taking a date to one of these. I knew her well- She was selected and quite frankly the star of the show. Afterwards she was approached by many people and it was surprising how many people believed she was a plant and only doing it to try and get exposure for an acting career ( which she had no intention of). So trading triggers deep down emotions developed by experiences, traumas creating beliefs that make you are what you are today. How can you dig deep and find out these things that the ego was built from - Knowing the ego does not want to let you face them because it is trying to protect you? That is the hardest part and requires you to take an amazing journey into yourself.Or at least that is what I required to do for myself. Unfortunately Hypnosis is not strong enough to get you there. In my experience. NLP is not strong enough- EFT is not strong enough - None of that was for me anyway- I tried them all- I have every psychological program for traders - All worthless because none of them can get to the root of the issue inside you that each time you put a trade on tells you that "YOU SUCK". If you are into programs there is one program I took which was awesome- It was developed by an actor Josh something for actors but can be used by anyone. Josh's father worked with Albert Einstein and taught him at a young age that emotion is simply energy- That as humans we are simply energy. The program is called committed impulse. It is an awesome program. I am not an affiliate or anything but it is 10 fold better than any of the professional trading programs I have. The bad news: You don't know what you don't know and you will not because your ego wont let you. The good news: There are people out there that can read the shit in your head for you. This is where I am going to sound like a real weirdo- and I am fine with that. These people can look inside you and tell you what traumas you have to bring them to light. Some people can see them and remove them for you but won't tell you what they are. Once you know what your core issues/beliefs are you can meditate on them and when that improves you can start observing as they come up in the market. The simple observation in the moment will be HUGE. Then those old beliefs just vanish and then you start seeing the market with a new set of eyes. You can get into the zone everyone alludes to but rarely achieve. Your beliefs will change- and once you execute in SIM perfectly as you would at the review at the end of the day you are ready to go live. Your personality issues should be resolved with the one issue remaining going live and that will be your survival emotion. Survival is meaning the account you are trading is not depended on to live. Should you go through this process it is very likely that you will recognize who you really are and it will be totally different than your previous belief. The suffering ends here. So.. The key is to create new beliefs- To do this you need to identify your old false ones Then believe in yourself. You are a creator your emotions are simply the energy that empower you to apply to your beliefs to act in the NOW. Here is a great video that summarizes some of this but does not go into the detail of what I tried to explain earlier. The people I have used to assist me cost anywhere from $60 and hour to $1200 an hour. If you decide to take this journey I can guarantee it will be the most powerful thing you have ever done. Hope this helps
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-a-blind-teen-sees-with-sound/ If you were raised like this I'll bet you would be a super trader..
DON’T GET STUCK IN A BOX TAKE THAT, WHICH “DOESN’T” WORK, AND “MAKE” IT WORK. Don’t let conventional wisdom stop you, take that which doesn’t work And make it work. Indicators don’t work? Make them work. Don’t understand a pattern? Learn. Make it work. Not performing according to plan. Work harder. Concentrate. Make it work. No help? Get some, Make it work. Not Creative? Get Creative. Laziness is the “Enemy” of Creativity. Have a Burning desire” to get better. Work hard enough, long enough, and you will “become” Creative. Don’t Quit, Don’t Quit There’s one “word” that you will face everyday until you become successful. That “word” is “discouragement”. And how you deal with that “word” will determine your success. TBILLM