Do you ever feel like you sometimes sabotage your your trading?
If you’re like most traders, you probably have and on more than one occasion.
One of the truly frustrating aspects of self-sabotage is that it’s right in your face.
You know you’re doing it.
You know that you’ll regret it.
It happens anyway, and then yes the regret kicks in. Sometimes anger and and self-chastising come into play as well.
If it was coming from only one source it might be easier to address, but in truth there are four.
And no matter how many months or years experience you have, how great your system is, any one or more of the four can wreak havoc on your trading account.
Which really stinks.
The good news is that once you become aware of the four sources of self-sabotage, at least then you can take steps to protect yourself from their influence in your trading.
The other nice thing is that you can ease up on yourself a bit. Nothing can take you down faster than a furious session of self-berating.
When you understand what’s going on, then you can be a bit kinder to yourself, which is much more productive.
The four main areas of trading psychology that directly affect your ability to keep a clear head, make the right decisions and act in a timely manner – comfortably and consistently:
Personal, Non-trading related issues are things that have to do with you as a person and are not directly related to trading, like your self-image, deservingness of success, beliefs about money, etc.
Trading-related matters include those experiences that you’ve had as a trader that haunt you and cause you to hesitate, overtrade, etc and are directly related to your trading history.
Skills & Abilities. Regarding skills and abilities, when a person jumps into a new occupation (like trading) and they are NOT prepared for the job, it WILL be stressful, emotional and full of challenges.
Tools & Resources. Good tools and resources are absolutely necessary in any performance activity. Without good tools, results suffer, like if you tried to play golf with bent clubs or tennis with a broken racquet. Now the skills and knowledge to know that your tools are right and how to fix any problems that come up is related.
All four areas need to be attended or self-sabotage is likely.
Neglected, your subconscious just isn’t likely to feel that you deserve success, and so will continue to ‘correct’ any success you do attain, to match your level of ‘deservingness’.
That’s why it is so critical that you treat your trading as a business and attend to all of the matters involved in being a self-employed professional. This includes but also goes well beyond creating a REAL and working Business Plan – to make sure you get there and in a timely manner.
When you show trading the respect due and you have a process to follow, you can experience the quantum leap you desire in just a couple of months – instead of years.
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About the Author
Brian McAboy of InsideOutTrading.com takes an unconventional yet highly effective approach to helping traders make genuine and rapid progress in their development as a trader.
Discover how to become a confident, consistent, and profitable trader, in 60 days or less, even if you’ve never had a winning month by attending this free webcast. Click here
