Anyone else self-sabotage?

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Years ago,
I used to self-sabotage almost every day.

Now I don't.

After you lose tons of money, hopefully, you will wake up
and be more calm.
 
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Well you need to be aware of your patterns of behaviour and events leading up to that and then catch yourself before you do the mistake.

If you know you are doing the mistake but you do it anyways, then you are not lacking discipline... you just haven't been fu**ed hard enough yet.
 
Aisone said:
FOMO...damn I looked it up and I think that's what blindsides me. I can detach from that all day and then BAM...wtf did I just do? It's not social media but price watching and the analytics in my head suddenly going on vacation.

I think part of my problem is that as I've increased understanding over time, I've found what works for me is simply counter-intuitive and counter instinctive to me, which is mentally much more difficult, and I battle the old me that used to act on instincts productively with less intense analytics, and the new process that will shred me if I disregard analytics and just rely on old instincts (especially when FOMO hits me, which I seem to get hypnotized into without realizing it.)
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you describe FOMO and what it does to you well...well done..

A couple of things...as MB said one has to have a true edge first. How one trades that edge is also very important. Ok put these aside for one second as not all can automate a true edge. The emotional/head/unconscious/body/psyche thing is more complex than trading...if we manually trade then we ain't robots..projection, introjection, projection identification, fusion with object, fantasy,paranoia, anger,fear,acting out impulses,mad parts of sane people, the past complexes/trauma come into it, 95% without awareness...we personalise the screen/charts..we turn them into our past...98% of it all experiences is a replay for us yet we don't recognise it as such.

I liken finding a true edge to thinking we know ourselves...achieving both is very unlikely and way overstated. Ironically they both can feed each other and also help the other. So a side bonus of grappling with the trading beast is at best we come to know or understand some of the triggers why we cant trade like a robot and lose money.

Hard work to find edge first then the arena is more forgivable to us when we play in it.
 
orbit23 said:
Well you need to be aware of your patterns of behaviour and events leading up to that and then catch yourself before you do the mistake.

If you know you are doing the mistake but you do it anyways, then you are not lacking discipline... you just haven't been fu**ed hard enough yet.
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Yeah they are the same couple things that I do a very good job avoiding 99% of the time during the day and then just seem to leave the door open somehow at some point for the demons to get in. I can't say I've never experienced this issue lately, but for some reason moreso now. And yes, I have even been fu**ed hard enough lately and you'd think that would be enough.
 
beginner66 said:
you describe FOMO and what it does to you well...well done..

A couple of things...as MB said one has to have a true edge first. How one trades that edge is also very important. Ok put these aside for one second as not all can automate a true edge. The emotional/head/unconscious/body/psyche thing is more complex than trading...if we manually trade then we ain't robots..projection, introjection, projection identification, fusion with object, fantasy,paranoia, anger,fear,acting out impulses,mad parts of sane people, the past complexes/trauma come into it, 95% without awareness...we personalise the screen/charts..we turn them into our past...98% of it all experiences is a replay for us yet we don't recognise it as such.

I liken finding a true edge to thinking we know ourselves...achieving both is very unlikely and way overstated. Ironically they both can feed each other and also help the other. So a side bonus of grappling with the trading beast is at best we come to know or understand some of the triggers why we cant trade like a robot and lose money.

Hard work to find edge first then the arena is more forgivable to us when we play in it.
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Some great responses here and really love yours, thanks. I have such an f'ing complex mind in regards to trading, in a good way and a bad way. I've been doing this so long, I could only wish I have accumulated as much success as I have baggage, and it's almost as if I have uninvited spontaneous flashbacks lately that suddenly hide a current reality from me. (Not that I'm short mental baggage in the game of life as well.) And I've got to find a way to get become more resistant to this, and self-analysis and sorting this out is certainly at the root.
 
Handle123 said:
I kept stats for 20 years on trades I took that were non system trades and mostly demo non system trades. I would have been profitable 5% of the time and lost seven figures. Bottom line was loses are needed so to enjoy profitable trades more.

If you don't know what is your edges, trading is a crap shoot.
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I'm going to log these things as well, thanks for the idea, so that I can remind myself every day what it costs me.

I do know where I find my edges, but the idea that if someone has an edge they are automatically going to be profitable is a fallacy (which I've unfortunately proven too many times.) There is probably (not always) an edge to both buy and sell something at the same time, particularly if they have a lot of respective volatility like index futures. But the difference between the two is a function of time. Are you going to try and go for the short holding time with hopefully a quick return requiring a low stress level, or are you going to go for the longer holding time, be willing to, if not expect, to lose money on your position in the short term, but know that over time that edge will pay off larger returns. Or are you going to do nothing, with eyes set on the long term and try and be more precise in your entry point, but risk missing it altogether and kick yourself when you do. Plenty of mental challenges when doing things manually. There are a lot more reasons than that why someone can have difficulty executing their strategy, but that comes to mind.
 
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