Self Sabotage

[brownsfan019]

	Quote:	Bfbusa
	Well, I my self sabotaging ways re-merged again today, but this time, I was taking notice. It comes from within. I find that when I see a setup develop, I manage to justify to my self why I should not take the trade only to watch, that it would have been profitable. I think I am very lucky to have found a setup that I find works in most market environments but very often let it go buy. I think I have left almost as much money on the table as lost in losing trades. After letting a few go by that would have worked you finally get into one and get stopped out. I am going to have to force myself to trade a smaller size and just take the setups as they come. That will be the hard paqrt.

bf - I can sympathize here. I think a secondary question (perhaps new thread) is - how many setups can you 'miss' or decide not to take, before you just have to call it a day and walk away. B/c as you've seen, it's a terribly difficult game to win when you are playing these games w/ yourself. Only you can really answer this, but it may need to added to your general rule book to help prevent days like you described. I've been there many times before... you see setup 1 and say no thanks for whatever reason (maybe the doc can help with that) and of course, this trade goes for a nice profit. You then get mad and upset that you saw the trade in real-time, did nothing, and you SHOULD have made money... sound familiar?

I would offer two suggestions:
1) As I mentioned, see if there's a correlation between missing your winning trades and then taking later trades. In other words, if you see looking back that as soon as you miss 2 or 3 that the odds are you are going to lose when you do go live, you gotta walk away after that 2nd missed trade. It's not easy, but it may be necessary depending on just how different your results are when trades are missed.

2) Just take 'em all. :p I know, easier said than done, but if your setup is as good as you know it is, you NEED to take all the setups or you will go insane. Literally, you could lead yourself down a path to the Traders Insane Laboratory. One idea that a good friend gave me was that if you can take a step back and act like you are just trading someone else's system for them as a hired employee, that can help in the mental battle. Basically, you go into work with the thinking that you are simply doing your job which is to look for the XYZ pattern and then act. That's it. No regard for wins or losses.

Good luck bf, but understand we've all been there. Eventually you'll get to the point where you have to take the trades or you will drive yourself into insanity. We all know trading is hard enough as it is, but when you have an edge and are unable/unwilling to exploit it when it's there is worse than having a losing system in my opinion.

One last idea is that if you really, really want the setup critiqued, post it here. I'm not saying you need to do this as I have never fully disclosed how I trade, although most of it is here, maybe you have a confidence issue with the setup. My above comments work under the assumption that you know the trade setup works. Maybe you aren't fully on board yet. That could be the problem and it would be very easy to see why. The fear of losing is a strong motivator. Again, just an idea, but if you post the setup and ask for critiques, I'm sure you'll get some here.