I've been through the same thing and fight it on a regular basis. I find peace and the ability to manage the issue by referring back to my plan. Your post suggests that you neither have a plan nor follow it. You can push the envelope and the boundary if you know what they are, your plan will tell you what they are. When I go beyond my plan and lose, I know exactly what I did wrong. The toughest part is finding the strength to admit, respect and cure it!
This is a bad place to be. I agree, reading depressing stuff by bitter traders can bring you down. But you have to allow it to happen by dwelling on it. Ok time to move forward and upward. You make your future, not anyone else. You know what the real holy grail in this business is? It is that feeling of confidence you get when you wake up in the morning that comes nice and easy that says you are going to score big today. You can create that feeling. You can create that reality. But you have to choose to stop doubting first in order for that confidence to take root. I think Rogue Trader summed it up well. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=363100#post363100
Bronks, You're a good guy and I hope you get to the next level in your trading. I'll try to not sound too surface so let me just say this: the core issue you're facing is being obscured by all the other variables involved in trading. It may be hard to see what exactly the core issue is so let me make a suggestion. I'm serious about what I'm about to say even though it may sound outlandish, so please hear me out. Take up online poker. If you don't already play, just sign up for a free account on partypoker.com or one of the others and type "holdem strategy" in Google and read up on a few of the simple strategies for a few hours then play some hands. Check out twoplustwo.com for more info. Zero in on playing the tight aggressive strategy. This is spelled out very well in Zen and the Art of Poker by Larry W. Phillips. Aside from the similarities to trading, it is a great way to blow off steam after trading. After you've learned the basics and start to get a feel for how to win try the following: go into a single table tournament (free tourney like they have at partypoker) and get in the same mindset you get in when you force the issue in trading. Say to yourself that you expect to see improvement in your poker playing, that all your hard work should be paying off. Then after the game is over, take stock on how you did. Try this over and over. After you're done you'll have a better insight as to why you've been getting the results you have been getting in your trading. Then try some different approaches - like being passive until you sense weakness in the other players or until you get a strong hand, then playing aggressively, and evaluate how that approach works for you. Poker is a lot like trading when you boil it down to the basics. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about how this relates to trading and what lessons you might learn, because I can see from your responses in this thread that you need to learn from experience. This is a good exercise for anyone who is trying to get to the next level in trading, or who is trying to work on various discipline issues. Good luck to you and I hope this will be of some value to you.
Bronks, I'd like to apologize. Admittedly I may have delivered my message a tad too strongly, but I truly did have good intentions. I wanted to see if I could get a rise out of you so that I may show you something. I know you said you know of what I spoke, but if you are to be honest with yourself then you will conclude that you know only on an intellectual basis and not the manner in which the market rewards. You have not learned how to act, because you do not know how to listen. And you do not know how to listen, because you are too busy thinking about yourself to hear what she is saying, much the same way as you did not truly hear what I said, because I threw a couple shots that your silly ego perceived as threatening. You cannot hear her because what she is telling you is in discord with what you seek and what you have deluded yourself into believing you understand. When it comes to overcoming demons I have only this to offer; The demons cannot be overcome. You need only to realize that they are perpetuated by a flawed perception and understanding of the task at hand to see the demons do not truly exist in the first place. Change your perceptions, stop clinging to yourself, and the demons will go away on there own accord. Stop thinking about yourself and listen to what she is telling you. This more than likely sounds like jibber-jabber to you, but I don't know a better way to transfer my own experience with getting over myself. PEACE and good-speculation...
With a 5k account, there really isn't much room for pushing (and failing) is there? Why do you need to push at all, instead of just hunkering down and taking it step by step, increasing your trading size in proportion with your (hopefully) increasing account equity? I can understand wanting to trade bigger as soon as you can, but there's nothing heroic about being overleveraged. Good trading usually never involves needing to "push" aka press or strain -- those words make it sound like you're just frustrated with your equity going up and down, and you're tired of spinning your wheels. Is the pressure of supporting your family influencing your trading at all? Do you feel like you're in a rush to get something accomplished with trading, and consistently find yourself taking excessive risks or "longshots" in effort to find resolution, whether it be success or failure? If so, my advice would be to rethink what your goals are for trading, in both the near-term and eventual end result, and make sure you have the proper support, both financially and mentally, to ultimately sustain a career in trading. Patience is a must; no one can trade properly "against the clock".
What makes you so sure that I wasn't getting a rise from you in return? Correct you are. Knowing and applying are two different animals. Obviously it's the applying part I'm having trouble with. You may want to re-think this statement as to how it applies to me. Do you think I can't comprehend what you are saying? If you say so. C'mon Spec, we deal with psychological warfare in the markets everyday. I don't like incorporating this into my posts, or life for that matter. That's why I like to keep things as straightup as possible in this forum, which is in tune with my personality. If you wanna show me something I may be missing...I'm all ears.
"EVERY time I try"....Now there is the problem! TRY to push it...what is a try...the actions prior to any defeat!!! If you want to really push it, then you have to hang it out there all the time...NO TRY! Make your trades with some authority of action and make sure you are convinced you will succeed! You have to push things at a new level of focus and determination...you can't trade for the big hits as a passive docile activity. Expect victory in your trading, because if you are not absolutely convinced that your big trades will win then you have already embraced defeat. Also, if you are going to go for it, you better go for it all the time. This is not a pick and choose strategy...this is a "statement" strategy. You must have an objective for doing this or there is no point in following such a path in trading. If you are truly going to go for it, then what is it you need to accomplish so quick? This is a extremely low probability strategy and thus must only be used by a trader that has a very unique objective IMO. Now if you are just trying to build up trade size, then there are many ways to do this with a very controlled and systematic plan. You do not have to go from 2 ES one week to 5 ES the next...there is no logic to this type of trade size increase. I would say to zero in on what your actually objectives are, then design a trade plan that will deliver you to your goal. Chris
TriPack-- Not dwelling, more like motivation. Just footnotes in my head that all. Nothing more, nothing less. OK gotta get some sleep.