I was relaxing, enjoying the evening, and drinking a beer when I noticed on my cell phone.. Then I say, in a joking kind of way... "Now that you are here I can go all in.. Don't take this the wrong way. And you want to trade OPM !? Come on, you're better than this. Get focused, man.
Nothing laughable about this - it hurts to see it... and it hurts bad No you don't..., else you would never have allowed it to happened Whether you realize it or not - you just fucked up a lot of you self trust - which now needs to be rebuilt Damn it Yukoner - Why..., and to what end (both rhetorical) RN
The rules you break have a consistent pattern (no pun intended)...they occur on your big losing trading days until you're forced to start all over again with a new combine. With that said, you've establish that you're one of those traders that can not manage this on your own while actually trading. Therefore, I once again highly recommend you resolve these issues prior to trading again because its starting to look like you're trying to use trading as a way to fix your personal issues. Continuing like this will eventually take you permanently out of the career of trading. I'm a strong believer that we as retail traders (trading from home) must have a supporting cast around us that respect what we're doing along with understanding this is not a hobby, not a game, not happy hour, not a day at the beach, not tea time unless we've already achieved our goals as a trader and these are fringe benefits that come with being a successful trader. Out of curiosity, it was recommended earlier to you in your prior thread that you as a trader...you have work hours. Did you inform everyone that they must respect your hours of work via not interrupting you unless its an emergency ? You're either not informing those close to you or those close to you have no respect for what you're trying to do. My point with this particular issue is that you've establish you can't do this successfully all by yourself. Therefore, you need in person help from those close to you especially while you're trading. Thus, it starts via those close to you that are none traders...they don't visit you nor do you allow schedule visits unless you know 100% you're computer will not be on. In fact, you should get into the habit of not turning on your computer if you know you're going to have visitors for the day. Stick to that rigid "no visitor" policy until you're able to learn how to manage social interactions during your work hours. If you can't do the minimum via having a simple discussion with those close to you about this issue...you'll never come close to reaching your goal. Fix your problems first...then you'll have a better chance of "trading correctly" instead of trying to fix your problems while trading. P.S. The fact that you mentioned your girlfriend coming by your home while you were trading and that the rules you broke occurred during her visit...your trading results had everything to do with your awesome girlfriend and everything to do with your inability to manage the situation involving that visit. Next time someone visits you (assuming it wasn't planned)...turn off the computer and call it quits for the day. If its a planned visit...your computer should already be turned off. If you don't get it...the next visit may also cost you $995 dollars or worst...not even the plumber charges that much for a home visit. The advice I gave above is because I've been there and done that. Nice visits from awesome people can do the strangest things to one's ability to manage emotions...especially when the girlfriend comes by for happy hour if you know what I mean...literally gives us a buzz of being fearless and that life is great no matter how many rules I break. Now you know why most top performing athletes don't have a happy hour right before competition.
@jas_in_hbca , @Redneck , @wrbtrader First, thank you all for your comments! They really are invaluable, and will be read over many times. You are all correct, and I need to step up and take this more seriously then I was. (There is no room for error like that) In review, I think part of the problem might have been some "overconfidence" due to feeling like I had reached a milestone in my head. Lastly, it shows how one mistake compounds into other mistakes. Bottom line. I should not have been trading. That wasn't my time to trade, wasn't my hours to trade, and I had not done my mental preparation. I stepped back into being a rookie. I am better than this.
One of the main differences between trading..., and everything else - in life We must prove it every day we trade..., and with every trade we take There is no exceptions..., nor room for laxity RN
Tonight sucked to read the truth, but if I am going to be transparent and improve then I have got to be willing to see the blind spots and accept the truth. Talked with my girlfriend, and explained about my trading time being so important for focus. She all ready knew that, and that lead to a good further discussion. And I talked with both my children, and asked for their support during the trading times. Which for me is West Coast, 6:00 am to 11:30 am. They were both good with that.
I have sabotaged myself at least tripled in my early stages of learning how to trade, all went bad, either drinking which I might add was not your first error but trading at non office hours, but eventually realize you will start doing better when Yukoner wants to become an adult, you can't be ruining your life cause you can't take the stress of possible failure. Now let's discuss your system, I have come upon or developed many systems and many better than the ones I trade as far as making money, but they didn't suit my personality or risk tolerance, you can have a really good method, but something is wrong with it cause your brain can't trade it, I am guessing length of trade in time, so start thinking about staying it less time and smaller targets.
Day #5 - Slept well, but yesterday and this morning I had a slight struggle with whether I should trade or not. I overcame that, realizing that it is how I act after a setback that is important, and if I was my boss, I would be sending me back in to trade. But, I also knew that seeing how I was only a few hundred dollars from my loss limit, that I needed to have a better strategy going in. I would have to trade for small gains, and build the account up and then I could open up and try to trade for larger gains. So that is what I did. Overall I waited for the right areas, but I was also very aggressive with stop placement, and if I got up a bit I was locking in a tick or more. So once I built the account up over $200, then I started opening up and trying to catch larger moves. I know from previous experience, this style of trading generates many more trades than normal, but I was okay with that because any single trade's outcome didn't matter. At one point, I was up about $240 and considered stopping for the day, but that wasn't the plan as I was trying to catch larger moves now. (Note: Tempted a few times to add to losing trades, but never did. Stayed disciplined.) Of interest, the very first trade I did, I felt fear hit, and I started breathing... but after that, I was tense a few times and I felt some fear hit, but I would start breathing exercises or I would talk it out. Then I just got out of that place! And I was just starting to trade. Felt right, but also running out of time in the day. (Note: When very active trading, I need to monitor for fatigue.) End of the day, I have to say I did well... the day was a wash... but I did a lot of trading, and I really controlled my risk... and once I build some profit up, I tried to open up and trade for larger moves. Getting to that place where there was no fear feels very good. -26
@Handle123 those are good points. thank you! Interesting to read this, after my strategy today was to go for smaller gains. This has been something I have been mulling over.... less risk, smaller gains... aggressive stop placement to reduce risk.
@wrbtrader all great stuff, but specifically the line above has me really thinking. Can you expand on that please?