Anyone else self-sabotage?

[murray t turtle]

Obviously you don't go to church where you're forced to sit still for hours, hehehe.
Actually most churches arent like that anymore, but when I was a kid the one we went to was like that, no clapping, no laughing, no hollering out, you just sat quiet and still.

%%
OK;
sorry you never cut a loss on that church ?? The preacher never told jokes, sorry just sorry Sure you were not in the funeral home??

 

[Zvi_WholeBrainTrading]

Self sabotage is one of the most misunderstood concepts of trading psychology.
EVERYBODY self-sabotages in many areas of life, and trading is no different.
The term "self sabotage" is a negatively-charged term, that brings out unnecessary feeling of self-judgement, shame and inadequacy and thus holds people back from dealing with the issue and solving it.

A better term is "secondary gain". What actually goes on is that we are subconsciously, yet purposefully SACRIFICING OUR TRADING RESULTS in order to achieve ANOTHER, MORE IMPORTANT GAIN.

For example, if we're in it for the action.
Or if we need to feel like a genius and take remarkable trades to show off.

Sometimes we're PROTECTING OURSELVES from negative implications of success.
For example, we may fear the vultures in the family raiding us once we make money, or our spouse and kids going on ravish spending trips and digging us even deeper in the "need to make money" cycle.
Or we may be afraid of becoming "mean and manipulative" like our uncle did when he became rich.

Either way, self sabotage is not "a mental disorder". It's the mind's way of solving a MORE IMPORTANT problem using trading mistakes as a tool.

Once we figure out the reason for self-sabotage (and there are simple techniques to do so professionally), it tends to work itself out rather quickly.

 

[danielc1]

Self sabotage is one of the most misunderstood concepts of trading psychology.
EVERYBODY self-sabotages in many areas of life, and trading is no different.
The term "self sabotage" is a negatively-charged term, that brings out unnecessary feeling of self-judgement, shame and inadequacy and thus holds people back from dealing with the issue and solving it.

A better term is "secondary gain". What actually goes on is that we are subconsciously, yet purposefully SACRIFICING OUR TRADING RESULTS in order to achieve ANOTHER, MORE IMPORTANT GAIN.

For example, if we're in it for the action.
Or if we need to feel like a genius and take remarkable trades to show off.

Sometimes we're PROTECTING OURSELVES from negative implications of success.
For example, we may fear the vultures in the family raiding us once we make money, or our spouse and kids going on ravish spending trips and digging us even deeper in the "need to make money" cycle.
Or we may be afraid of becoming "mean and manipulative" like our uncle did when he became rich.

Either way, self sabotage is not "a mental disorder". It's the mind's way of solving a MORE IMPORTANT problem using trading mistakes as a tool.

Once we figure out the reason for self-sabotage (and there are simple techniques to do so professionally), it tends to work itself out rather quickly.

Great post and great alternative way of explaining how a human brain works. Do you know and can you share some simple techniques?

 

[Zvi_WholeBrainTrading]

Great post and great alternative way of explaining how a human brain works. Do you know and can you share some simple techniques?

Try asking yourself the following questions.

* What am I GAINING from this behavior?
* What "lights up" in me when I do this?
* What am I PROTECTING myself from?
* What would I have to face/accept/acknowledge (about myself or my trading), that I would rather avoid, if I stopped this behavior?
* What (negative) would happen if I stopped?

Be honest, and go with the first intuitive response - however shameful and inadequate it may seem (good secondary gains often are. Our subconscious mind is not politically correct...)

Word of warning - while this is something I regularly use with coaching clients, it's not always easy to do alone. It can be very introspective, so doing it alone requires a fair bit of self-awareness, and some of these are actually subconscious or near-subconscious which means you aren't even aware of the secondary gain. That being said, many people do gain a lot of insight from such exercises - even on their own - and realize what they need to change in their trading approach.

 

[danielc1]

Try asking yourself the following questions.

* What am I GAINING from this behavior?
* What "lights up" in me when I do this?
* What am I PROTECTING myself from?
* What would I have to face/accept/acknowledge (about myself or my trading), that I would rather avoid, if I stopped this behavior?
* What (negative) would happen if I stopped?

Be honest, and go with the first intuitive response - however shameful and inadequate it may seem (good secondary gains often are. Our subconscious mind is not politically correct...)

Word of warning - while this is something I regularly use with coaching clients, it's not always easy to do alone. It can be very introspective, so doing it alone requires a fair bit of self-awareness, and some of these are actually subconscious or near-subconscious which means you aren't even aware of the secondary gain. That being said, many people do gain a lot of insight from such exercises - even on their own - and realize what they need to change in their trading approach.

Great suggestions, thank you. I have had the good fortune to have someone in my early years that made me aware of the concept of self sabotage. But your definition is more beautiful and explain it better. "Secondary Gains" are very powerful. The learning curve of your self and what you really want is a beautiful proces. Most people attracted to trading are just also the people that are not aware that everything is about knowing yourself and what you truly want out of your life. They are focused on the outside, creating systems, doing statistics and math, and forget there being are the main reason of failure or succes. I had a very long battle between being a social person and finding sitting in front of my computer a waste of time. So, I started doing other businesses that are focused on relationships and just made an agreement with myself that 1 hour a day is the maximum amount of time I would spend in front of a computer to trade. It took my several years to understand this. The harder you work the more you get, was a believe in my mind. It translated in more hours in front of the computer in the early years. As a result, the part of interacting with other people got ignored. And then the self sabotage begins. And that made me going out to talk to other people about my trading results. I didn't see the loop, untill someone has pointed it out... Made the changes to max 1 hour and trading results went trough the roof. I hope many people will find the way to what you provide.

 

[NoahA]

Made the changes to max 1 hour and trading results went trough the roof.

Can you extrapolate on this? I'm finding a very similar loop in myself. No matter how many hours I put into this, results are unsatisfactory, and I don't even have the energy anymore to keep thinking that putting more work in will eventually get me there. At the end of the day, the trade either works or doesn't, so looking for the perfect setup is a pipe dream. And of course when looking at the chart in the evening and hence seeing the entire day, the nice setups I wasn't around for anyway, so its not even possible to spend hours waiting for price to get to an ideal area.

Did you switch from a 1 min or 5 min chart to an hourly chart and hence only need to check positions and place new entries for longer trades? Or is it that you're just limiting yourself to a few day trades that will wrap up in minutes so that you don't have to sit at the computer longer?

 

[danielc1]

Can you extrapolate on this? I'm finding a very similar loop in myself. No matter how many hours I put into this, results are unsatisfactory, and I don't even have the energy anymore to keep thinking that putting more work in will eventually get me there. At the end of the day, the trade either works or doesn't, so looking for the perfect setup is a pipe dream. And of course when looking at the chart in the evening and hence seeing the entire day, the nice setups I wasn't around for anyway, so its not even possible to spend hours waiting for price to get to an ideal area.

Did you switch from a 1 min or 5 min chart to an hourly chart and hence only need to check positions and place new entries for longer trades? Or is it that you're just limiting yourself to a few day trades that will wrap up in minutes so that you don't have to sit at the computer longer?

I do not think I can give you the right answer, but for me it was a couple of things:
1) having a skewed risk reward system of 1 to 5
2) understanding myself and what I want to accomplish with trading
3) realize that a system that returns about 200R a year is crazy successful in trading, so I aim everyday for a net profit of at least 1R and have a rule to not lose more then 3R a day as a maximum.
4) understanding that being tired or emotional have an influence on my decisions and on my results
5) keeping it so small I do not care about the outcome of one trade or even a day or week.
6) understanding that volatility determines the net outcome of a trade. Most volatility is in the first hour or the last hour of the trading day. I chose the first hour.
7) strict rules about entry, exits and time.
8) The most profit comes from sitting in a good trade, so I aim to catch the long range day
10) in the first 90 minutes you have a good chance of having the low or having the high of the day.
11) MP value areas give me a good insight in where to trade and the range bar chart give me the when to take the trade

I hope this helps a bit

 

[NoahA]

8) The most profit comes from sitting in a good trade, so I aim to catch the long range day

How does this work if you only aim to trade one hour a day? Do you stay in the trade and just wait for limit orders to hit while you're away?

 

[danielc1]

How does this work if you only aim to trade one hour a day? Do you stay in the trade and just wait for limit orders to hit while you're away?

When I´m in a trade that really goes my way, it closes out at the end of the day. It is really beneficiary to not sit behind the screen watching it, for me. Sometimes, if I have the time, I look at the last 30minutes, to close the trade, because you get a reaction back most of the time in a large ranging day, at the close. But I do not plan for it. Exit at the close is good enough for me.

 

[Goldlover]

I know what I'm doing and I understand the game. And it takes a lot of discipline and mental strength. And then all of a sudden, it's like I get a voice inside my head that makes me do something hastily and completely stupid. WTF. Anyone else battle something like this?

We've all been there before. Trading takes discipline and mental strength, but those impulsive moments can hit anyone, for sure. However, the key is to recognize those feelings and develop strategies to manage them. You're not alone in this struggle