"You versus Yourself in Trading" - AllxDayxRayx
Confessions of a Market Maker co-host aka Cannoli Fingers digs deep into a topic many new & struggling traders need to understand in order to take the next step!
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You vs. Yourself
You’re your biggest impediment to trading success bar none. There are other market participants around the world and you’re competing against them in a sense, but trading truly is a game with yourself. It’s not like poker: you’re playing against a defined number of players that you can see- though I’d argue as well poker is a game with yourself, but having direct access and contact to your competition is where lies the difference. In trading, you don’t know who’s on the other side of your trades- you can only speculate at best- and can only speculate what their motivations are. So yes, there are many global participants who you’re competing with, but their not even close to being villain #1- that’s yourself. In the following paragraphs I’ll discuss why trading is a game within yourself and not versus other people.
Your lack of trust in yourself & your constant search for answers outside of yourself hold you back from your full potential. Now, I know this can be a tough thing: when starting off you’re going to lack confidence and quite frankly it may take years to truly trust yourself and what you’re seeing & feeling- I know it did for me. There is a fine line between your intuition and your biases and perhaps it’s time put in and experience that helps one distinguish the difference. You can’t help how you feel, so accept the feeling. Don’t try and dismiss and get rid of it, don’t get upset with yourself for feeling the way you do. All you are doing is creating internal conflict with yourself that for sure isn’t aiding your trading. What else creates internal conflict for a trader?
Expectations & comparing yourself to other traders can be fatal. Quite literally don’t expect anything: don’t expect the market to do anything, don’t expect to make a certain dollar amount. This fills your mind with useless ideas that leads your execution astray- for more on this see my previous article titled “I must make money everyday.” Comparing to others? What’s the use? I only see ego driven reasons. You want to be better than or you feel less than. Perhaps it can be used as fuel to power your work ethic; perhaps looking to others brings inspiration. But looking at others and comparing to others are two different things. We have a propensity to look outside ourselves for answers; Looking for that one setup or indicator that will be your money printer. Maybe a new book or two that will give us the insight we need. The thing is you have the answers already, you just don’t know it. You must find the answers within yourself; you got to trust yourself and your intuition. While looking up to another can provide a good template and model to follow, it has its own trappings as well.
I’ll give an personal example which I hope will illustrate my point: In my beginnings stages of playing poker, I consumed all the books and videos I could get my hands on; I was extremely driven to be the best player that I could. But consuming so much of other’s ideas I wasn’t formulating my own. I’d be in a difficult hand and I’d have a strong inkling towards one decision, but then I’d ask myself how this one player who I’ve been extensively studying would play it, and I’d base my decision off what I think HE would do instead of basing my decision off what I think I should do. Do you think a top trader or top poker player asks themselves in the heat of battle what another would do? Or do they have supreme confidence in their own abilities to trust their own internal cues? If you want to take yourself to the next level, you MUST trust in yourself.
I’ve written a little about this before, another internal conflict traders deal with is a lack of perfection, a true rarity in trading. Didn’t hold long enough, closed too soon, missed a trade. There is essentially no “winning” and most of the times trading is going to drudge up unpleasant emotions even when profitable. It is what it is, don’t let it lead you astray. This leads people down the path of style drift: bouncing from one trading strategy to another without developing a solid foundation as they foolishly search for perfection.
The last thing to say on this topic, progress is often very subtle and unnoticeable. If you’re doing everything in your power to improve, have faith that progress is being made despite your lack of recognition or lack of results. Your perceived lack of progress or results can result in some catastrophic decisions- style drift, tilt, quitting before you’ve given yourself adequate time to succeed. Good luck
-Cannoli Fingers (aka @allxDayxRayx)
You can trade alongside Ray (and his co-host partner JJ @vwaptrader1 everyday in the Microefutures.com /EquitiesETC Trading Room community where they posts their trades, enjoys banter with members, provides education, training videos and so much more.
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