If I broke my rules, I would stick a pin under one of my finger nails quickly until I drew a decent amount of blood. It hurt like a bitch; it was awful. But if worked like a charm. If you are struggling for a long time trying to change yourself but to no avail, you will have to take drastic measures. People DON'T change...easily
A rule is a set of strategy and mindset. If you ask this question, it means that you have the former but not the latter yet. A strategy that has had a firm proven statistics of success and a mindset that is poise enough to trust and to operate that strategy in smooth and tough market environment.
I was joking when I posted earlier, but no one responded anyways. I've never had an issue following rules so I wouldn't know. I can only assume that breaking ones own rules depsite the fact that one has a good method can only be assumed that the person doesnt truly want to believe their system is good OR they think that flying by the seat of their pants will produce better results. Who knows, most people are fucking morons and self destructive anyways.
I think you need to know your system/edge as well as your personality/style intimately before you can even create a set of rules that have any real meaning. - Which is to say your rules are YOUR rules and they actually WORK. I put a lot of thought and experimentation into my rules, not to mention careful wording, as well as simplicity. They're MINE now, I own them and they work for me! I NEVER break them.
letters >>>> words >>>> grammar >>>>> sentences >>>>> paragraphs >>>>> chapters >>>>> books >>>>>> language >>>>> languages. The markets have a language that tells a story. Did you learn to read? Let's hpypothesize that you did and your were successful and nowadays you can pick up a book and read it. Go further, you can write to others and they get what you told them. Sometimes you speak and listen when you are with someone else. Suppose some one comes along that you connect with. You chat You even get to be friends or you decide to be special for each other. wah thappens when you are in a relationship? Let's say it is a partnership. At some point you make the decision to accept what the other person tells you. By doing that, something else comes into the picture. It is none of the things that are related to discipline or following rules. Switch to considering that you are a trader and you trade a market. See if you are partnering with the market and if you have: letters >>>> words >>>> grammar >>>>> sentences >>>>> paragraphs >>>>> chapters >>>>> books >>>>>> language >>>>> languages. Is there a means of communication involved between you and the market? Is it possible to accept the "tells" of the market and "GET" the story the market is giving you in market language? If this has happened, then you have "trust" in the partnership and trust leads to your understanding the value of the tells. As is seen in many posts, no trust is there and there is no partnership nor is there any language either. This incoherence is established by FEAR, ANXIETY and ANGER that most traders have acquired because of the decisions they made and the consequences that come from poor decisions that prevent learning the language of the market and the ability of a person to form a partnership. A mind that can read, write speak and listen is differentiated. There are no edges involved at all. A lot of people switch partners occasionally. Do they change languages? What do they change? Acceptance goes away for the former partner. Trust goes away too. valuing what the former partner said goes away. What takes the place of all of these things? A new partner, new acceptance and finally new trust. Have you ever tried to manage a partner? What is the substitute for managing a partner. Discipline? Rules? No, instead it is having a common language. understanding and acceptance. Trust and values.
That's a whole new perspective. very insteresting. Does it work? If I trust the market, will it stop tricking me and reversing on me? If not, how can I trust the market and treat it as a partner not an enemy?
There is a nice Art of War quote on the lines of focus on the campaign not the battles... if one focuses on the battle to greatly the campaign becomes second in mind... thus will be lost... In the book "The 22 strategies of War" by Robert Greene, #12 states "Lose battle but win the war!" The point is.... when I am contemplating blatantly breaking a rule I remind myself of the said strategy... I quickly focus on my overall goal and the impact/roles following rules plays to the ultimate achievement... then now my current state of rash action seems less wise and becomes noticeably counterproductive. Thus now I have the correct mental state to pull back from the situation.
Do you really think, that the negative repercussions on your account emanate from the market? Why do you think, that your entering into the market somehow changed its direction? I guess you were kidding with your third question.
I generally agree with Jack's concept, but totally disagree on his approach and the real outcome. This is important because it takes us beneath the RULES to how the brain works. If you see a top trader explain a set up, and then demonstrate trading those set ups in live trading, you won't think in terms of left brain RULES. Instead you think in terms of right brain PICTURES of successful outcomes. Copying live trades differentiates the mind whereas after-the-market drills or trying to learn the trade live but on your own only reinforces left brain rules and confusion. If live demonstrations are followed up with the mentor asking you to call the market immediately prior to or during live market reversals, then you can't think in terms of rules as it's the opposite side of your brain that is controlling the trade. You either see it or you don't and, and if you are rule based you will be too slow. When driving you put your foot on the brake in an emergency before you have told yourself what to do because it's a right brain reaction. Reading about how to do an emergency stop and thinking that is the same as live action fools your brain. Look at Neoxx's thread for several examples of how he was utterly convinced Jack's SCT was perfection and he was âpartnering with the marketâ so that Jack was telling ET how Neoxx was compounding money. Then look at what happens when Neoxx went live. It was an unused right brain crash and burn time but Jack and Neoxx had been convinced steady progress had been made. Jack has loads of ring binders for traders to drill SCT into their reflexes, but all that happens is that traders get overloaded with rules and hence no one can demonstrate SCT live. The extraordinary perfect X3 and X6 daily range claims are all based on what would happen IF someone applied all the RULES correctly, and while Jack claims to have trained tens of thousands of traders on SCT, try finding one, just one, who will demonstrate SCT live and get anything like these results. Talking with my ex. who is a pro trader, he said a trader doesn't struggle with rules: you struggle with self belief because your inner conscience knows you are not flowing with the market. The Inner Game of Tennis was the first book to explore how rules destroy our ability to perform and explained the need to close down the left brain to allow the right to control superfast decision making. Jack leaves his bootcamp guys on their own struggling to find the channel lines in the live market and then to correct it after hours. This drill only reinforces left brain rule domination. It takes months of explain â live demonstration â live copy drills for the right side of the brain to dominate, but that's how everyone from special forces, top athletes to musicians etc. are trained until it become impossible to even think what the rules are. Take out the live demonstration and copying and what do you have? Well let's put it this way, if you were a hostage would you want guys who had seen and copied live-fire drills to rescue you, or guys who had read how to do it from ring binders and practiced on their own with blanks? Problems with rules or trading discipline come from right-left brain conflicts that in a nutshell stem from lack of belief whereas seeing is believing. Aspiring to copy what's demonstrated is a greater positive influence than trying to follow a bunch of rules. Good luck.