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Christopher Sommer (as quoted by Tim Ferriss in his book 'Tools of Titans', page 161):
“Dealing with the temporary frustration of not making progress is an integral part of the path towards excellence. In fact, it is essential and something that every single elite athlete has had to learn to deal with. If the pursuit of excellence was easy, everyone would do it. In fact, this impatience in dealing with frustration is the primary reason that most people fail to achieve their goals. Unreasonable expectations timewise, resulting in unnecessary frustration, due to a perceived feeling of failure. Achieving the extraordinary is not a linear process.
The secret is to show up, do the work, and go home. A blue collar work ethic married to indomitable will. It is literally that simple. Nothing interferes. Nothing can sway you from your purpose. Once the decision is made, simply refuse to budge. Refuse to compromise.
And accept that quality long-term results require quality long-term focus. No emotion. No drama. No beating yourself up over small bumps in the roads. Learn to enjoy and appreciate the process. This is especially important because you are going to spend far more time on the actual journey than with those all too brief moments of triumph at the end.
Certainly celebrate the moments of triumph when they occur. More importantly, learn from defeats when they happen. In fact, if you are into encountering defeat on a fairly regular basis, you are not trying hard enough. And absolutely refuse to accept less than your best.
Throw out a timeline. It will take what it takes.
If the commitment is to a long-term goal and not to a series of smaller intermediate goals, then only one decision needs to be made and adhered to. Clear, simple, straightforward. Much easier to maintain than having to make small decision after small decision to stay the course when dealing with each step along the way. This provides far too many opportunities to inadvertently drift from your chosen goal. The single decision is one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox.”
@David_R, I would love to see your entries & exits of today's trading.
Maybe it's time for a short pause and a fresh new start. Back to the drawing board. Don't be hard on yourself.
Could it be you are trying to hard? Quit trying to trade, just trade, win or lose. No e-mail, news, internet, just trade and do what works, avoid what does not (based on your setups & daily analyses).
Stop asking yourself if this is going to work or not. Just trade and enjoy. It's a game. Trade smaller so losses don't have an impact! Why trade NQ and not MNQ and why 4 lots? Scale down. Don't go for big winners, go for consistency, however small! When consistent profitable scale up 1 by 1 lot.
thank you for your feedback and for the book recommendation. I bought the book and read it the same day. It resonated with me a great deal, but as with most of these books on trading psychology the it always comes back to the "Trader" to "fix" the issues for lack of a better word. That's an obvious conclusion and of course makes sense, but I struggle with the how.
I did trade today and, but was fairly anxious about the trade. I tried to let it run, but wasn't willing to let a profitable trade turn into a scratch.
I read the book suggested by Mich62 and i could hear all of my "team" members chiming in. The analyst, the Accountant and the trader all doing their thing. I worked to make decisions based on the chart, support and resistance and the indicators I use. The exit of the trade was higher timeframe support and the indicators were showing a lack of supply which would minimize downward movement.
Thoughts and Emotions: I'm not even sure at this point. I know i was anxious about the trade. Happy it was red, but thinking "its going to turn around and i'm going to lose this profit". It did end up reversing and I was out based on the technical analysis. I was satisfied with that.
Made up yesterdays loss plus a little frosting.
As suggested by Mich I will be reducing my contracts down to one or two at the most.
I traded on Thursday the 15th and it was a cluster fuck. Excuse the language. Ended the day green, but did not trade well at all. I capped that off today by hitting the trailing drawdown on my Leeloo evaluation account again for the umpteenth time. I did not reset the account. I canceled the evaluation account. So, now what? I don't know, but stepping away from trading again and see.
I haven't been posting here. I wasn't sure how much i would be trading. I really don't want to quit trading. I've been trying very hard to be patient and disciplined. It's so difficult for me. I re-entered a couple of evaluation accounts through Leeloo and had some success, but ultimately blew the account. This week in only two days of trading I've exceeded the $3000 profit target on a $50K account. I need to trade for 8 more days to be funded. I've decided to reduce risk and trade enough to get the funded account.
I need to be transparent, so I need to say that I fucked up and hit the trailing drawdown on the Leeloo evaluation account. This was on FOMC day. Im aware that I should not have traded etc etc etc,. It's probably time to step away again. It should be permanent, but it's tough to let go of trading. More important to me than the potential financial rewards is the freedom it provides. I'd like nothing more than to not work for a company. That would be a greater reward than the money, but it's not meant to be, at least not yet.
I've been trading, but not posting here. I've been in a Discord channel with some very good traders thinking that if hang out in a room like that it will change my results. It hasn't. It is clear to me that my behaviors are the issue. I don't act like a professional. I may plan trades, but then don't execute based on the plan. I take too many trades, revenge trade, trade too large to try to recover losses only to create more losses.
Someone suggested that I watch a series of 4 videos by Mark Douglas.
This series of videos was an opener for me. At the end of the series he suggests an exercise. It's a series of 20 trades based on ones Edge. Take every trade based on the edge/method no matter what. I realized that doing this would require planning and then executing per the plan. Not trading like I'm pulling a lever on a slot machine hoping it pays. I'm not suggesting this is easy, but I realize that if i want to succeed at this I will have to change my ways. So, my methodology has not changed, but they way I execute the method must change. More planning and executing on that plan. The image below is an example of the type of trade I plan to take.
Hi David, the conclusion that "if one want to succeed at this, one will have to change his ways" is an important lesson learned and it gives you a target to focus/work on.
The Mark Douglas videos are really good, like his books. I also liked the books from Ari Kiev.
Earlier on you wrote "it always comes back to the "Trader" to "fix" the issues for lack of a better word. That's an obvious conclusion and of course makes sense, but I struggle with the how." I would like to suggest to incorporate clear rules in your trading and to judge your performance on how well you followed your rules.
"Make your plan mechanical, the more mechanical the better. Stick to it to make it a habit over 20-30 trades. The first few trades are difficult to stick to the plan. But stick to it, have discipline, until it’s habit. Focus on perfect execution of the plan between 5-20 trades. You are 8-13 trades away from the trader you want to be, but they never get there until you adhere to the plan" from Dr David Paul - The Psychology of Trading & Investing, another great video. Hope it helps. Good luck!
First day of my 20 trade series. I'll be honest. I was feeling pretty good about this. New focus. Follow the rules. My method works. All that bullshit.
I took 5 trades and all of them losers. 4 in the ES and 1 in the NQ. I think the trade location was okay, but trying to short in this environment was a mistake. Maybe I had blinders on and wasn't seeing what was going on. I don't know.
I'm not sure if I can do 15 or more trades. It seems if I'm erratic I lose and if I try to follow a plan I lose, so something isn't right. Of the 5 trades I exited one early, which would have hit the stop and the other 4 I let hit the stop. NQ 110121
