It is the drive to succeed that pays off. Perfection is a sickness. When one drives for perfection one loses sight of his goals. The goal becomes perfection instead of success. Perfection does not guarantee success. The perfectionist spends 3 hours trying to find a .01 cent error while balancing his checkbook when he could be using his time to better advantage.
Have a little time here so I'll add a little, nothing exceptionally new though. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets out of Control In TOO PERFECT, Dr. Allan Mallinger draws on twenty years of research and observations from his private practice to show how perfectionism can sap energy, complicate even the simplest decisions, and take the enjoyment out of life. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Too-Perfect/Allan-E-Mallinger/e/9780449908006/?itm=1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Normal perfectionists - set high standards for themselves but drop their standards if the situation requires it Neurotic perfectionists - never feel that they have done their job well enough. They are very intolerant of mistakes and extremely self-critical http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/articles/personalityandindividuality/perfectionism.shtml --------------------------------------------------------------------------- whoodi said: "Today I just focused on trading good looking entry points and stop worrying about being correct every trade. I went to a lower timeframe so i could get more entries with tighter stops." I can agree with this approach. The tighter the stop the greater the likelyhoold that a trader with neurotic perfec- tionism can regard the loss ( if there is one ) with indifference. Just be sure to set the stop before the trade and do NOT change it to a larger one. With many psychological problems one find fear(s) to be at the center. The fear of losing money, until you have no more, can be lowered with tight stops. Ending your trading for the day after losing X amount of dollars is another thought. One can say, like gamblers do, that the next trade could be a big winner. I would say that it's time to go out for a walk, or whatever is going to get you away from the computer. -Stephen
Well put Steve..... There is and never will be perfection in a game with imperfect inputs. Playing around today setting up screens etc. hell if i wanted perfection i could remarry..............women know all the answers..
I guess it depends on how you define a perfectionist. Does being a perfectionist mean you have to be right on the market direction all the time? When I'm swing trading, my direction has to be right. When I'm intraday trading, I can be wrong with regards to the overall market direction and still make money. Thus, the saying, "you don't need to be right to make money".
HolyGrail said: It is the drive to succeed that pays off. Perfection is a sickness. When one drives for perfection one loses sight of his goals. The goal becomes perfection instead of success. Perfection does not guarantee success. _____________________________________________ To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour. 1881 R. L. Stevenson âThey say it's better to travel than to arrive.â ââTheyâ have obviously never been on this bus!â [2002 Rough News Spring 2 (comic strip)] A perfectionist would want to be right on market direction, profit target, and everything else. The mere setting of a stop-loss would be an admission of possible failure. A perfectionist regards the traveling as more important than the destination. The means is regarded as INFINITELY more important than the end (ie. making money). I don't admire Chuck Palahniuk at all, but I do believe in giving credit where it is due. This is one of his quotes. When one sets a tight stop, and goes long, and the market goes up, and you target is hit, and you close the trade... âA minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.â -Stephen