Yukoner's 2015 Psychological Journal
- Thread starter Yukoner
- Start date
@Handle123 I hear what you are saying, and I really hope that I am not doing that. What I am trying to do is teach my brain structure... stick to the plan... only make widgets.
Eat, Sleep, Trade, Repeat.
You told me before to trust the trading plan. That is what I am trying to do. I can change it later, but for now, I am trusting the trading plan. Without a doubt this can be improved on, and it will in the future, but first I have to show consistency in following a plan.
When I am getting close to a profit target, I am like go go go... let's fill this... but not at the expense of violating my plan. It might sound weird to some, but I would rather see a trade come 1 tick from my profit target and then stop me out for a full loss... than for me to violate my trading plan. I would celebrate that as a victory because I stuck to my trading plan.
If the plan says to adjust stop to BE +1, then I will... but until that time I have to stick with these rules.
At times it is crazy frustrating, but I am teaching myself control... and discipline... and with that is coming more confidence. Confidence that was severely damaged when my wife left me last year. I felt shattered, like I was a total loser, and didn't deserve anything. I blamed myself, and felt like I couldn't do anything right... and then second guessed everything... Trading skills, masculinity, worldviews, one's future... it took months to get over that. And I still am a little bit because I so deeply loved her, BUT I am much much better... and I believe I am a much better trader now than I was when I went into live trader prep with Topstep. I am certainly more stable emotionally.
Hope that all makes sense. Thanks again for all your input and help.
I certain agree with you need both right mentality and system, usually the hardest is mentality unless it is automated. I think those who are consistent have tested back in all kinds of volatility-high and low, real tough to trade weeks of tighter sideways action, but that has to be in one's trade plan as well to be able to adapt, smaller targets and sometimes larger risk.
we'll soon find out, summer is coming...
Yuk,
You have really made very good strides in taming the evils within you, but again what you don't want to do is allow brain to get use to losing, to this day, each weekend I am trying to tweak something for ES and Crude Oil day trading, often nothing gets tweaked but I have to try as during the week new ideas might come to me, so I might change protective stops a tick either way. Each weekend should be your popping the hood and look at what make it better, and rest of the week to keep doing what you are doing mentally.
We all want you to tear it up and succeed.
PDay #6 - Slept lousy, I think it was the late and long walk on the ocean about 40 mins before I went to sleep. So as summer hits, I need to be more aware of how that affects my sleep.
Went into the day watching my very first trade come within 4 ticks of my take profit, only to reverse and stop me out. Checkmark. Took another setup trading the range, with smaller profit target and that worked out. Checkmark. From there I traded post the EIA news with near perfect stop placement -1... cause twice I was stopped out right at the high of the swing, only to see it drop substantially. Frustrating to say the least. But I didn't change anything, and for that... checkmark.
Then I put on a trade that was bang on the correct trade, just a spike up took me out, and suddenly there I was... banging right up against my personal daily loss limit. Now this is were I have to say, I probably proved to myself that I have really made some progress... because about 15 minutes later a picture perfect low risk setup appeared. I so wanted to take the trade, but the parameters if stopped out would have put me beyond my daily loss limit. It wasn't easy, a bit of an internal struggle... but I stuck to my rules, and didn't take the trade. However, I did sim trade it... and yea, exited with a 74 tick gain.
It was such a great day to be trading CL, and I knew I was missing out on some opportunity. But it was more important for me to follow my rules that it was to make ticks. In a way, it sounds weird to me, but I actually feel like celebrating today as a victory.
I am getting close to being finished with these static stops and take profits, but going to finish up the week before I make any decisions. So far, I have proven to myself that I can now stick with a plan.
-399
Went into the day watching my very first trade come within 4 ticks of my take profit, only to reverse and stop me out. Checkmark. Took another setup trading the range, with smaller profit target and that worked out. Checkmark. From there I traded post the EIA news with near perfect stop placement -1... cause twice I was stopped out right at the high of the swing, only to see it drop substantially. Frustrating to say the least. But I didn't change anything, and for that... checkmark.
Then I put on a trade that was bang on the correct trade, just a spike up took me out, and suddenly there I was... banging right up against my personal daily loss limit. Now this is were I have to say, I probably proved to myself that I have really made some progress... because about 15 minutes later a picture perfect low risk setup appeared. I so wanted to take the trade, but the parameters if stopped out would have put me beyond my daily loss limit. It wasn't easy, a bit of an internal struggle... but I stuck to my rules, and didn't take the trade. However, I did sim trade it... and yea, exited with a 74 tick gain.
It was such a great day to be trading CL, and I knew I was missing out on some opportunity. But it was more important for me to follow my rules that it was to make ticks. In a way, it sounds weird to me, but I actually feel like celebrating today as a victory.
I am getting close to being finished with these static stops and take profits, but going to finish up the week before I make any decisions. So far, I have proven to myself that I can now stick with a plan.
-399
I believe you're encouraging a conflict via trying to manage two different trading plans...one involving your combine in which you've set a daily loss limit while at the same time using another trading plan (simulator) that allows you to take simulator trades without a daily loss limit.
Simply, its like you're teaching yourself that there's another trading plan that involves "ignoring" your daily loss limit. This will eventually teach yourself that "maybe" once in awhile its ok to ignore the daily loss limit because you see the trading plan without a daily loss outperforming your real money trading plan.
Thus, wouldn't it be better if you just used only one trading plan involving your daily loss limit with real money and just not do any simulator trades that has no daily loss limit to prevent instilling conflicting messages to your brain (psychological) ?
Maybe you're stronger than me in the head but if my other trading plan (simulator without a daily loss) was performing better than my real money trading plan...eventually I'm going to start using that simulator trading plan for real money trading. It just seems like a natural thing to do. Thus, eventually I'm going to tell myself its "ok" to continue trading my real-money combine without the daily loss limit...essentially taking many steps backwards in my discipline.