On topic from Innerworth (psych mailout)
The Well Planned Trade
It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game. This old adage is especially relevant to trading. Many novice traders assume that winning is the only thing that matters, but what they soon find out is that profiting over the long-term requires discipline and trading well developed trading plans. Sure, you can capitalize on chance and make a few winning trades here and there, but you can only win in the long run by developing a trading plan and following it.
It is important to distinguish justified wins from unjustified wins. A justified win is when a trader makes a very detailed trading plan and follows the plan. A win that results from following a trading plan is justified and reinforces discipline. An unjustified win occurs when a trader doesn't make a plan or drifts from the plan. He or she may be rewarded, but the outcome occurred by chance. The win is unjustified and can reinforce undisciplined trading.
For example, suppose you go long on a stock, expecting it to go up $1, but it went down. If you followed your plan, you might close the trade. Suppose out of frustration, though, you hold out and hope against hope that the trade will turn around. Now suppose that it does, and you end up profiting. You have ended up with a profit, but you may have reinforced an impulsive trading style.
You might think that profits are all that matter. "All is well that ends well," right? Well, maybe not. You may make a big profit, but at what psychological cost? Unexpected wins may provide short-term pleasure, but they can adversely influence discipline in the long term. Rather than developing a well-defined trading plan, following it, and getting rewarded by trading it, a trader puts on a trade haphazardly and is coincidently rewarded. In this case, a lack of discipline is rewarded, and this unjustified reward may increase a trader's tendency to abandon trading plans in the future because he or she has been rewarded for doing so in the past. However, the positive outcomes are usually short-lived, and a lack of discipline ultimately produces trading losses.
Cultivating discipline is vital for consistent and profitable trading. One implements proven trading strategies, over and over, so that across a series of trades, the strategies work enough to produce an overall profit. It's like making shot after shot on the basketball court so as to accumulate a winning number of points. The more shots you take, the more likely you will amass points. But the winning player is the person who first develops the skill to make the shot consistently, so that at every possible opportunity, the ball is likely to go through the basket. To a great extent, consistency is key. If the player uses one approach one time, and a different approach at another time, performance is haphazard. It's the same for trading. One must trade consistently, following a specific trading plan on each and every single trade. This allows the law of averages to work in your favor, so that across the series of trades, you will make an overall profit. If you follow the plan sometimes and abandon it at other times, you throw off the probabilities. Suppose you used a strategy that had a track record of 80%. Under the best-case scenario, you could only expect to win 80% of the time. But since history doesn't always repeat itself, it's likely that you will win less than 80% of the time. If you don't execute the trading strategy the same way each time, you will decrease your winning odds. And fewer winning trades may mean an overall loss. That's why discipline is so important.
With discipline comes profitability. Don't let unjustified wins interfere with your ability to maintain discipline. Follow your trading plan, and reinforce the idea that if you follow your plan, you will end up with profits in the long run. If you abandon your trading plan, and get an unjustified win, you may feel good in the short term, but you'll pay a long term price when it comes to your ability to maintain discipline. So clearly define your trades, and stick with your trading plan. The justified wins you receive from following your plan with help you develop an unwavering pattern of disciplined trading.
from Innerworth.com