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Journal what, how, and why during your trading. This will help create a record of what you are doing when you are trading. Then review this journal and see what events happened that caused you to start overtrading.
Identify one area and work on it. A few weeks later pick another area and work on it.
To give an example I had issues with entering too quickly or late, or just generally not being pleased once I entered. So I started a 30 sec shot clock. When I am looked at my trade I would decide if I entered in the next 30 secs what effect it would have. If I believe I would miss my price I would enter, if I don't I had to wait 30 secs before I could consider entering. Then at that point the clock starts over, and the process started over.
This caused me to slow down in my entry, which now allows me to be more confident when I enter. Because I have taken the time to fully read what is happening, make a decision, and then find an entry.
Now I don't even think about it, it is ingrained into how I enter my trades.
For me, I was able to stop overtrading by getting away from discretionary trading, and going to mechanical/automated trading. Following a handful (at the time) of mechanical strategies cured me of overtrading, because it became too difficult to keep track of what I was doing (which systems was I "cheating" on, and which were I following exactly?) if I went against the systems.
Eventually, I realized that having an approach that has been proven to be profitable, and then following it without alteration (ie, no overtrading, extra trades, etc) is the only way to go.
Lots of good suggestions already given. Here are a couple more that may help the initial poster, or someone else:
1. Setup audible alerts that go off when the technical parameters for your trade are triggered. Until an alert sounds, do something else and ignore the charts, even going to the extent of turning off the monitor(s) your charts are on. Obviously may require some programming depending on how complicated your trade setup rules are.
2. Hire a professional trading coach who specializes in trading psychology (sorry, I don't have any specific recommendations).
I remember hearing somewhere that trading ultimately isn't about mastering the markets, it's about mastering ourselves.
As others have said, you're not alone in this problem. Wish you all the best in overcoming it.
Thanks "tturner86" what you say makes perfect sense! One needs to work on each little aspect of your trading until you reach a stage of confidence, not to mention profitability of course! I take it this could be a long and lonesome road at times!? One which each individual trader needs to walk! Thankfully a forum like “Big Mikes” makes this process that much easier! Thanks again to all who contributed.
That's a new option "kevinkdog". I have not even contemplated looking at mechanical trading at this stage! I have my hands full just trying to find a system, or set of rules that can give me some sort of "proven profitability" going forward. I might have to have a closer look at what mechanical trading is all about!
This is something I am working on. I think my root cause is that I am too desperate to see results so I force trades on the smallest signals (I am 100% discretionary, and I often get lost over thinking things) . I think subconsciously I believe that the harder I try the better I will do, which is irrelevant whilst actually trading (obviously you need to put in the work, journaling, reviewing trades etc), rather than waiting for opportunity. My best days have been where I am not "looking" for trades, I am simply receptive to information and letting the trades come to me, and I am in a relaxed but focused state. Being relaxed and unfocused has led me to taking impulsive trades and disregarding risk (and I am not really paying attention to the market), being focused but anxious means that fear has me jumping into trades or bailing out prematurely. I don't think the number of trades is the problem, sometimes the market will move very fast with a lot of momentum and give you lots of opportunities and other times it is sluglike, I think it is about identifying genuine opportunity, defined by your strategy, and then executing.
Understanding yourself is just as important as understanding markets.
The solution is really to have a system in place, setting a loss limit and adhering to that no matter what. It ultimately also is a matter of self-control.
I would like to share my method to prevent overtrading. I use an app to prevent me to restart the trading platform once I reached a certain loss or gain. I close the platform and start this app (I don't want to mention the one I use, because it might be consider advertisement by futures.io, anyone there are dozens to felp productivity).
After I start this app, I block the trading platform for the rest of the day or for few hours. These apps are normally used to prevent the use of browsers.