While watching the Fed Release yesterday with a Long open position(demo acct), I was paying attention to my emotions as I watched the price (EURGBP) gain over 100 pips from my entry. I had a plan, but it wasn't to take that profit, I wanted more, but when the price started coming back down, I kept the hands off the keyboard. What were my feelings?
For some reason, BWILC I guess, or another AHA, but I feel a lot more in control. I feel there is a plan and I can execute the plan. I'll make mistakes but I now don't feel like I missed the boat on more profit yesterday. There's more tomorrows. I'm starting to look at price fluctuation a lot differently. I don't have to be exact anymore. Have a plan and execute.
stanh wrote:For some reason, BWILC I guess, or another AHA, but I feel a lot more in control. I feel there is a plan and I can execute the plan. I'll make mistakes but I now don't feel like I missed the boat on more profit yesterday. There's more tomorrows. I'm starting to look at price fluctuation a lot differently. I don't have to be exact anymore. Have a plan and execute.
Thanks Dirk and his patience with me.
It isn't an unusual experience and it is hard to pinpoint what it is for everyone that cause this feelings of being in control. Would like to get some more views.
I think it is a combination of the fact that you know you don't have to worry even if it goes against you way further than what you would in the past allow and the ability to use time to revisit your decisions and manage them.
As a result you feel more in control because the market is more in a price comfort zone while before it was pushing the boundaries (your stops particularly, or more broadly your view of where price "should" go to make you happy and how fast of course) the whole time.
In the past also you didn't have a directional view and thus saw dangers everywhere. The directional view is linked to a storyline that you are beginning to follow and anticipate. And make no mistake those dangers you saw were real due to too high leverage.
I still think the most important contributor to a huge increase in positive trading psychology that BWILC traders experience is a huge decrease in the leverage they use. There is a collapse of the intense focus on random market moves, a drop off in fear levels and the ability to indeed stand back and observe from a distance even while you participate. You have perspective which you didn't have before.
The big bad dangerous dark world were outside your defined stop distance from your entry. Even on the positive side the stop distance (i.e. the number of pips in profit = number of pips between entry price and stop price) was the beginning of the dark zone, because psychologically you anchored on the value of maximum loss and this is a profit of the same size and if you allow it to slip you lose. You know you shouldn't do it in terms of the trading systems which is predicated on the idea that you make more but smaller losses than profits. But still you do it. And lose. Then you turn to trading psychology tricks to learn to trade emotionless because you think you will then win. Absolute hogwash.
So bottomline is that there are basically two approaches out there to trade:
You either do what the 90+% losers do and you lose or you do what the non-losers do ...
Looking at the satisfaction polls it seems like we have a few non-losers around here. YAHOOOOO!!!
"For some reason, BWILC I guess, or another AHA, but I feel a lot more in control. I feel there is a plan and I can execute the plan ... "
DR FOREX wrote:
"It isn't an unusual experience and it is hard to pinpoint what it is for everyone that cause this feelings of being in control. Would like to get some more views.
" ... you know you don't have to worry even if it goes against you way further than what you would in the past allow ...
"As a result you feel more in control because the market is more in a price comfort zone while before it was pushing the boundaries (your stops particularly ...) the whole time.
"In the past also you didn't have a directional view and thus saw dangers everywhere. And ... those dangers you saw were real due to too high leverage.
"I still think the most important contributor ... is a huge decrease in the leverage ... You have perspective which you didn't have before."
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I can understand your "Yahoooo!" moment Stanh.
Anyone who has had a weight removed from their shoulders experiences this relief.
My take on this comes from a perspective of not: "Being in Control" but : "In being not OUT of Control." There is a subtle difference.
Without going into the Psychological goop pedaled by the Marketing Magicians (to sell yet another enlightening eBook) it can be put very succinctly in terms we can all understand:
The source of your/our fear comes from past experience - something that causes us pain is an experience we want to avoid. No one understands this more than the trader who has blown up an account or two - there is a lot of pain and damage there, and it MUST be overcome.
How? How did I overcome mine?
I consider what I personally did to be quite radical ... and it did not "cost" me one dollar. I "took back control of my mind."
I did this through trading a Demo a/c (please hear me out ... ).
I have known for a long time what a perfectionist personality I have - it borders on Obsessive-Compulsive. In short, whatever I do, I have to give it my best ... and that includes Demo Trading. I can NOT trade Demo without actually FEELING the dollars and the pips and percentages.
I began to see that my Demo trading was not going too well (using my own method, not BWILC) and this began to upset me somewhat in a banal kind of way. It was not necessary of course to actually MAKE money in a Demo a/c, but it should go that way if the trader is learning anything.
TWO things I noticed:
1) I always entered at the "wrong" point. ie the trades went almost immediately against my preferred direction. Try as I would, I always got the entry"wrong". This was one thing I had to fix.
2) My stops kept getting hit, no matter where or how carefully I placed them.
Clearly radical action was needed (I know ... I know ... getting to that, but it is a good story ... )
I did the "unthinkable" ...
I traded totally WITHOUT STOPS and ... I widened my TIME FRAME to WEEKLY.
I opted to "go through the pain barrier".
Picture what happened next ... the trade goes against me ... down ... down ... and just at the point I am beginning to sweat (remember my perfectionist personality - I am feeling pain here - it MUST NOT lose!) the action stops ... turns ... and within a few days, it comes roaring back through my original entry, and powers away making 350 pips!
No one is more amazed than I am.
I repeated the exercise ... in fact I repeated this 44 times!
In EVERY case, my trades became winners.
Where am I heading with this scenario ....
Go back to Stanh and his statement: "I feel a lot more in control..."
Why is that?
Purely because of the confidence Stanh is feeling in the method. It may be a lot to do with BWILC (probably 60% of it) but there must be more of course. Having a plan and executing it flawlessly can be only one part of the story.
Having confidence in the approach is the rest - specifically the 4x1 approach. The bonus in all of this of course, is to have a mentor who can oversee your actions, and perform "brain surgery" where necessary.
Fear and Lack of Control are elements which lead to pain. Avoidance of pain can get us into quite a lot of trouble. However, facing that pain and learning to triumph over it personally will give you something that NO ONE can take away from you.
As Dr Forex said elsewhere:
Trading can NOT be taught as a THEORY - It is an EXPERIENCE.
With best wishes
Ingot
(Edited to correct spelling ... Obsessive Compulsive again ... )
