The CL/NQ experiment

I hope not too off topic but think of these examples - they are extreme, but think of how this same thing can occur in simple trading.

...anorexia
....self harming
......compulsive gambling when you know the odds are stacked against you.
.......anxieties cause stress, raise blood pressure
........some people loose money because they want to play the victim and get sympathy
....munchausen syndrome

 

Greetings Again Gabe,

Granted, I’m no shrink, but I have spent enough time with my own “grey matter” to be able to see the similar condition in another. So I will attempt to answer your questions and statements:

Your Question: “What gave you the above idea?”
My Response: If you were watching a baseball game of your favorite team, and you were able to see the future, and you already knew that your team was going to win the game, would you ever get excited about your team being down by 10 runs in the 9th inning?
I was able to glean a sense of where your “mindset” might be by your “intense and emotional focus” on the results of your last individual trade, vice where it should have been, which is on the “flawless execution” of all your trades. And only then, evaluating your results after a statistically significant series of trades has been executed.

Your Statement: “You may be right but I am not consciously aware of it. Maybe you can elaborate”.
My Response: You cannot assume that learning about something new, and even agreeing with it totally, is the same thing as believing it at a level where you can consistently and effectively act on it. The two are not the same. I have found in my trading experience that there is:

1. Seeing something – Nice but you don’t know it yet.
2. Knowing something – Better, but you don’t fully understand it yet.
3. Understanding something – Best, but you don’t OWN it as yet.
4. OWNING something – When you know, and you know that you know, and your results consistently demonstrate this beyond a shadow of a doubt, then you can say that you own it. In my experience, I have found that only after a series of “Ah Ha moments” over time, do you really come to OWN something.

Statement: “What I do suffer from is the desire to be right or conversely, not wanting to be wrong.”
My Response: The idea of “being right or being wrong” has absolutely no place in your trading mindset and psyche. They are indicative of the fact that your trading “Center of Focus” is not properly set on what it should be, which is the “flawless execution” of your trade. When operating from a “right and wrong” perspective, your energies will be improperly directed on making YOURSELF, and each individual trade “RIGHT”. This will likely cause the introduction of “random variables” into your trading regime which will act to dilute your trading series.

The result, you will never learn what works on a consistent basis. You’re attempting to hit a moving target, from an unstable platform, with floating sights. It is not likely that you can win this game. It is the evaluating of your “results” after a statistically significant series of trades that will determine what needs to be “researched and studied” to improve your overall performance in the next series. In this regard, your learning and development as a trader thereby becomes a process. And I might add…an enjoyable one at that.

Your Statement: “incidentally, I just made a deal with 1 of my friends in which I have to pay him every time I don't enter a trade by my rules.”
My Response: This is not a good thing to engage in while learning to trade. It grants an “open invitation” to ego involvement in each and every one of your trades. Your “Center of Focus” may shift to trying to prove something, vice learning to flawlessly execute your trade. I suggest that you withdraw from this needless distraction.

Once you discover the truth, or at least what I have come to know as MY TRUTH, that for me, with the appropriate "mindset", trading is a: “Pattern Recognition with Probabilities Numbers Game”. All of these things will begin to fall neatly in line,.....and then things should become easier.

Hope this helps.

KDASFTG

 

I'm no expert however my understanding is that we have evolved to not like change. Our current state we may be in is safe or at least known. A change my involve unforeseen risks that could cause as harm or take us from even a bad situation to a worse situation. Our subconscious will do what in can to prevent change and insure our survival based on the primitive belief that we're alive now why change anything.

The common example is why do people in violent and abusive relationships stay in that relationship. It's fear of change. Maybe consciously and subconsciously.

A good book which I don't remember if it mentions the above but is still a very good read is:

http://www.amazon.com/Subliminal-Ne...how+your+unconscious+mind+rules+your+behavior

It's an easy read with interesting academic studies presented.

 

Your subconscious mind hasn't been programmed to function comfortably in a trading environment, which requires one to embrace uncertainty with every trade because the positive outcome of each series of N trades is rewarding.

In other words, as traders we must constantly endure short term "failures" to achieve long term success.

Losing trades aren't actually failures, but the subconscious perceives them as such.

Through positive action (learning to accept discomfort in the short term until the positive outcomes reduce your fear of loss or fear of "being wrong"), we re-program the subconscious to accept that everything will be just fine.

Right now, it's not intentionally trying to sabotage you; it's trying to protect you from what you fear, which is "loss" and "being wrong".

 

I realize and I know based on my results that 100% winning is not possible.
I don't expect that in general but in the course of the trade I put too much weight on a particular trade.
I will work on that even though I am not sure how.
Hopefully with enough brain washing (meant in a good way) it will come to me naturally.

Gabe

 

Are you saying that the subconscious is causing the above?
If yes than the question is WHY?

 

You may be right even though I like variety and dislike monotony.
I think that I am close to cracking the nut or I may have cracked it already but the idea that the challenge is gone is probably preventing me from success.
As long as I fail but stay at it, I have something to look for.

Gabe

 

What is the sub-conscious mind?
I am not trying to be funny.
I would just like a simple (practical) explanation.

Gabe

 

Knowing why won't change your behavior. That's why there are constantly new self help books. People read them expecting change to magically happen by osmosis. They generally do the exercises in their head or think about how great it all sounds. They rarely do the hard work necessary to replace negative behaviors with positive ones.

Why does the subconscious do these things? Here are a few ideas:

Anorexia - Subconscious wants you to look like the perfect models you see adored in the popular media and causes you to see yourself as not quite there yet.

Self harming - Subconscious believes it can help you overcome your fear of pain and death by building your tolerance to serious discomfort.

Compulsive gambling - Subconscious loves to remember the pleasure of winning and discards the pain of losing, causing you to become addicted to random rewards, and the belief that "the big win" is just around the corner because you're "due" for it.

Would knowing any of this help you change the behavior you're addicted to?

Heck no! Study the 12-Step Program of Recovery to find out how to deflate the ego by doing things that smart, strong, clever humans find absolutely yucky to imagine doing because that would be pure weakness.

 

The 12-Step Program of Recovery has too many religious references for my taste.

I think you should write a book about trading and related issues.
I would like to be the first to buy it.
Thanks for the examples.

Gabe