Bedist, a few more thoughts/mind dump..kids footy is all off, 'kin rain..
Mark Douglas has been mentioned 'up thread' and he constantly runs a theme, throughout all his narratives, that we have to re-wire our personal hard drive in order to be ready and able to accept losses, not an easy task as it flies in the face off and then crashes and burns into our core belief system..
What other employment could we enter were we know tomorrow that one thing is absolutely certain;
"Tomorrow I will at some stage probably lose money, or be in a loss making situation/s with one or more trades."
Who on earth would welcome that scenario as part of the opportunity to do business? Us that's who..
![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
Douglas also talks re. obtaining a "winners' mindest". Iirc it was me and Mean Revision who recently discussed sport, the winners' mindset and its alignment with trading; football you can't score every shot on target, tennis you can't win every game/set, golf you can't win every hole/match..even snooker there are times when you sit there as you watch your opponent build a frame winning break..in trading you have to constantly re-set your mind, find your trading equilibrium, and go again.
Just another thought; if day trading you need to pace yourself to prevent mental and emotional tiredness. A pattern that happened to me often; I'd take up to 5-7 trades on the Euro off a 5 min, from 7am up to when the NY opened, if 4/5 were losses and 1/2 wins and I was down 3/4% I'd be relieved if the next trade/2 trades would bring me back to close on break even for the day. I'd be so relieved I'd call it a day and felt OK with my performance, inevitably other trades would then offer themselves up that I'd pass on, convincing myself that I'd pulled things around and tomorrow was another day.
The *cure* was/is to take less trades, by either moving up to 7/10/15 min TFs, and/or adjusting the optimisation of the strat to (hopefully) select better trades with higher probs. If I'd taken 2 trades and I was only one trade down, I'd still have plenty of go in the tank to take on the afternoon session..Even now that's how I operate when day-trading, I still use the 5min TF price action, but insist on 2 other conditions being met before I pull the trigger and If I hit circa 50 pip (day trading) target that's it, job done...but I don't fixate on that target..
Finally, staying in the game/what doesn't kill you makes you stronger etc...Another aspect of our trader masochim is that when starting out we have to choose between a long painful death as opposed to a short bolt out of the blue. Imagine you have a terminal illness, but the really good news is that a cure maybe just around the corner, what ya gonna do? Fight to stay in the game is what you're gonna do by adjusting everything in your lifestyle to give you that fighting (sporting) chance..
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