indeed a good thread... let me throw a different approach to handling this. Exercise. I run at a competitive level and find that this self-reflecting time each day lowers stress (as all good exercise does) AND makes it easier to focus on the bigger picture thus making these short-term struggles near nonexistant. When I am not running, I find that I am edgier and often find myself putting my brain in full stop because what I was doing (angered, emotions in control) had no possible benefits...especially in the long term (i like to think I am preventing future heart attacks when I focus on being stress free ) So as someone mentioned...while there are tactics for battling this it is hard to eliminate its source... I think that by doing activities that focus on the bigger picture help to completely stop any acts of self-sabotage and the likes. Try learning to play an instrument, running a marathon, loosing ten pounds in a couple months... starting to sound like new years ~RT of course, if you have not enough patience, then i believe it impossible to stop poor acts such as self-sabotage
The market I believe is to exist to exploit any weakness in one's emotions. The money you loose is just an secdonary effect of emotional exploitation.The very lack of emotional intelligence is what ultimately leads to financial ruin. I've been in more situation than I care to recall where my defiance and "revenge trade" brought me spiraling into a financial tsunami. And it usually starts off with a day trade with 2 handfuls of contracts and the next thing I know I'm holding 200-lots for days and days. Refusing to take losses and adding to losers, what is the motivation? why the self-sabatage? I've psychoanalyzed, pursued hypnotherapy techniques and practiced Zen meditation. These techniques do help but one thing I found maybe more invaluable and offer a greater depth to understanding and change is ....12 Steps from AA. We need an objective perspective from the outside, we need to admit weakness and fundamental character flaws, and we need to seek a higher guidance. And above all we need a support buddy. Self sabotage is about control or the delusion of control. I've relinquished control and surrendered my trading/personal impulse to the man upstairs and to a buddy to intervene (broker and/or software that blows you out of the trade) when i become weak, or momentarily lacking in clarity. My problem has never been making money, my problem has always been wanting to make an obscene amount of money. That was the addiction and the required need to let go, and let go of the self sabotage i faced.... Remove the "I" from the equation and the truth is revealed, and the self is free .... I'll keep you guys updated on how I'm doing...one day at a time.. Change comes from 3 forms of experience Sickness, Death, GOD.
jmho Sabotage is the sure result of thinking too much and playing too little. Trading is not a rocket science. Thinking too much will nail you down while the market laughs at you by showing all the chances that you have lost which makes you think harder and digging a deeper hole. Forget the market, just play the game as any kid would. It IS a game of fun (profits will come with the fun and not viceversa).
Self-sabotage. Two elements are involved. Firstly if you do not know the market you trade in really well then it will end up with you beating up on yourself for misjudgment or weakness. I've probably become very repetitive on this aspect but you have to do the data assembly, study, analysis, testing and training until you have an accurate trading model. Mental, or better still, paper trading can be used for testing and training. Never be impatient. When you are finally prepared and ready, thats the time to go out, trade and take no prisoners. The second element is the need to lose. This is your masochistic drive to make certain you belong to your place stuck in the sh*theap of life and not to become one of the winners perched well above that on top of the world.
On IITM July 10, 2002 â Issue #73 weekly letter there is 'Are You Sabotaging Yourself?' article. Also they published a two-part serie articles within the Market Mastery newsletter.
I trade ES reversals intraday which means I can really screw myself up for fighting trend. I use TradeStation and click for trade analysis to see if I am killing my edge. When I am trading poorly or if the market seems to trend for the day, I would use "one-losing-trade" stop for the day. Even when I am doing great, I limit to a low number of trades I can take (I don't pick trades... just trade what I see). These are all hard measures to stop self-destruction while admittedly sacrificing potential opportunities. At least I can't hurt myself for the day if I follow the rules. To me, I found all the revenge trading, not honoring stop, trading too big a size are all of the same problem: I was not able to ACCEPT THE RISK (of the method) while in a trade. If I accept the risk, why would I revenge trade? If I accept the risk, why would I not honoring the stop? If I truly have an edge in my method then I should trade small size many times to make sure the statistical edge works over large sample size. Why would I bet all the chips at once to increase the risk of ruin? Why would I be too eager to double up or increase position size? Basically "IF" the method fits you (you truly can rely on its edge and accept its risk) and you realize your situation, all these problems and many others should not hit you as hard and can be managed with a few hard rules. "ACCEPT THE RISK" is my mantra. Good trading with less pain!
TRADING WUSSIES" You know I have been a member here for a long while, and to date I have seen only 10-12 people out of the what 40 thousand members demonstrate a real understanding of "edge. This fact is so striking (in my opinion) that I have come to think that this site is populated largely by what I call "Trading Wussies". I don't want to be offensive. Don't want to insult you folks unnecessarily, BUT I do think that there are so many of you "wussies" here that you may not know that other groups exist. So, for me the question is why are there so many wussies? How did a bunch like you, get hold of enough money to trade?, and do bullies, thieves and muggers somehow know that you are wussies, and seeing you walking or riding the bus to your day jobs, decide to take advantage of you, knowing that a true "wussy" will not resist. As to trading. Since many of you "wussies" are hesitant to lose money (after all how would you pay your muggers, to keep them from beating you to death) the main question is "are you attracted to this site because you can appear to be someone you are not (a real or "successful" trader)? I am guessing the answer is YES...... Having said that I want to assure you that I don't want you "wussies" to change a thing. In every group there is a hierarchy. Without "wussies", who would occupy the bullies, thieves and muggers. Here on the internet, since there can be no threat of physical harm, one can infer that thieves, and muggers have been replaced by scammers, con artists, system vendors, mentors and chatroom "entrepreneurs". The bullies have the same boring old game to play with you "wussies", and you can see that played out everytime one of you gets a little testy. Then the real dominant people (bullies) step up and they verbally bitchslap the wuss around until the yell "uncle". Its a sort of internet version of "Lord of the Flies"... Okay then, thats enough philosophizing for now. You "wussies" can go back to sleep. You have an busy day ahead of you. I like my coffee black and hot. Steve
Failure to realize that in truth you never had any "control" over your profits to start with. PS: This is a typical loser's whine popular with the psycho thread.
I shouldnt have to say this, but the "trading wussies" post is a joke folks.... Please don't get pissed at me. I really don't think of you as wussies. (well....let me think about that one a little bit). Believe me, if my grandmother calls, suddenly I start to resemble a wuss myself.
I think that self sabotage is just a way out of pain for those who are affected by it. Most of discretional traders experienced it IMO. If one is to trade mostly mechanical method, self sabotage should not be a problem.Discipline always is. When I used to play sports I saw fairly often when people choked when presented an opportunity. I never understood that, I was always "dive head first" guy waiting for an opportunity then hitting it hard. Trading is more complicated though and overly intellectual,self examining types might actually self sabotage themselves by thinking they are better then market and then collapse when things get tougher then they are.