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What psychological shift did you make to become profitable?


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What psychological shift did you make to become profitable?

  #1 (permalink)
 
BrooksElms's Avatar
 BrooksElms 
Los Angeles, California / United States
 
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Most people agree that trading success comes mostly from psychological factors. Instead of hopping from new system to new system, traders have to "look in the mirror" to breakthrough.

So I'd love to hear from traders who've become consistently profitable after looking in their mirror.

What exact process did they use to make their psychological shift?

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 kevinkdog   is a Vendor
 
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BrooksElms View Post
Most people agree that trading success comes mostly from psychological factors. Instead of hopping from new system to new system, traders have to "look in the mirror" to breakthrough.

So I'd love to hear from traders who've become consistently profitable after looking in their mirror.

What exact process did they use to make their psychological shift?

I turned the corner when I started to actually believe in what I was doing, and therefore gain the confidence to follow my approach without meddling in it.

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BrooksElms's Avatar
 BrooksElms 
Los Angeles, California / United States
 
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Thanks, kevinkdog.

So what exactly did you do that allowed yourself to start believing in what you were doing?

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 kevinkdog   is a Vendor
 
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BrooksElms View Post
Thanks, kevinkdog.

So what exactly did you do that allowed yourself to start believing in what you were doing?

When I started to be profitable. Once I saw what I was doing made money, that gave me confidence to follow it.

Kind of a Catch 22 - it is hard to be confident in what you are doing if it loses money, but being confident is important to make money.

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BrooksElms's Avatar
 BrooksElms 
Los Angeles, California / United States
 
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kevinkdog View Post
Once I saw what I was doing made money, that gave me confidence to follow it....Kind of a Catch 22....

Hey Kevinkdog,

Yeah, that doesn't sound like working through a psychological block. It sounds purely rational to me. Seems you went from healthy skepticism, to winning consistently, to rationally believing your edge.

Over what period of time were you profitable enough to inspire your boost in confidence?


Also, I suspect many successful traders go through a period of some sort of pesky internal doubt that sabotages their process. Maybe, deep down, they don't feel like they deserve the money. Or they play the victim card and blame things outside of their control. Or they're too eager to make money (maybe because it would help pay pressing bills). But then they do SOMETHING that shifts their mindset, resolves that inner conflict, and they use their same exact system, but now they start winning consistently.

I'd love to hear stories like that from people this happened to, or stories you've heard from others that walked that path.

Thanks!

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  #7 (permalink)
 Sumatra 
Berlin+Germany
 
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kevinkdog View Post
When I started to be profitable. Once I saw what I was doing made money, that gave me confidence to follow it.

Kind of a Catch 22 - it is hard to be confident in what you are doing if it loses money, but being confident is important to make money.

yeah, such a suppotive feedback: the more you earn the more confident you become anв the more you earn.

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Dijon
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kevinkdog View Post
When I started to be profitable. Once I saw what I was doing made money, that gave me confidence to follow it.

Kind of a Catch 22 - it is hard to be confident in what you are doing if it loses money, but being confident is important to make money.


Just wondering how long it took you before you became profitable enough to gain confidence?

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 kevinkdog   is a Vendor
 
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Dijon View Post
Just wondering how long it took you before you became profitable enough to gain confidence?

Probably 10+ years, part time. I tried lots of ways, made probably every mistake in the book, and a few that were not in the book.

I wish I had just started with a book like Bob Pardo's book. My learning curve would have been so much faster...

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 Seahn 
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BrooksElms View Post
Most people agree that trading success comes mostly from psychological factors

I'll stir to pot here a bit and go out on a contrarian limb.

In my own opinion, psychology in itself has very little or nothing to do with success in trading. What has everything to do with success is finding a trading method that has a long term verifiable edge. I mean, how many people here if given an absolutely guaranteed profitable trading method would not follow it to the letter and live happily ever after?

The problem in trading is that finding that edge is incredibly difficult to do, some may even say impossible in the long term. Edges in trading are small and fleeting, a successful trader must be constantly on guard for changes in the market which will negate their edge and stand aside when that happens.

This is where the so called "trading psychology" becomes a problem. Without a real edge a trader begins the cycle of second guessing, constant changing method, looking under every rock for the holy grail of trading and eventual spiral out of control which leads to blown accounts.

So in my opinion, it is more productive to spend ones time finding and verifying a trading edge (easier said than done) than to worry about "psychology" unless one is truly psychotic which is possible but unlikely.

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