JerryTheTrader
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How I have learned trading habits like sticking to checklist with over 92% of trades, avoid monkey mind during trading or doing everything what I have wrote in my trading plan.
What conclusions I have after 5 years study trading psychology on myself and helping my friends doing the same results.
In this article I will tell You:
During the first four years, I burned a lot of trading accounts. It took four years to understand that trading psychology would give me an edge if I put it to good use, or it would burn all my accounts if I will stay as an ignorant. After four years, I finally doubled my trading account for the very first time. And this article is about how I got there and what was happened next.
A LONG AND THORNY JOURNEY OF FAILURE.
Here You have a list of my failures at a glance:
FROM COACHES.
If you understand that the psychology of trading is 80% of your success, then read on.
MY BIGGEST PROBLEMS were that I was not sticking to the rules of the strategy, so I had no way of knowing if it worked for me. If I made a statistical 30 trades and half traded against the checklist, how would I know if the strategy was working or not?
In order to find out if the strategy works for me (or for you) i need to have 100% traded according to my trading plan. One and the same setup is best for statistical purposes. I know one girl who stubbornly trades one setup and squeezes money out of the market. This is a 50% pullback setup. Very simple. It's easy to find on the chart. All that's left is to stick to the checklist.
However, I had a problem with that. I couldn't hold on.
I was increasing my flight, stopping, going in too early or too late. All because of emotions. Several years of searching for knowledge about the discipline and then a long training of this discipline allowed me to obtain over 92% of transactions according to the checklist. Now I know what works in my strategy. How it works. When it works. And how can I improve myself to get more out of the market?
Finally, I have a few questions for you:
What conclusions I have after 5 years study trading psychology on myself and helping my friends doing the same results.
In this article I will tell You:
- What mistakes I took for last 5 years of trading.
- What I found out until I doubled my account.
- What You can get from it.
During the first four years, I burned a lot of trading accounts. It took four years to understand that trading psychology would give me an edge if I put it to good use, or it would burn all my accounts if I will stay as an ignorant. After four years, I finally doubled my trading account for the very first time. And this article is about how I got there and what was happened next.
A LONG AND THORNY JOURNEY OF FAILURE.
Here You have a list of my failures at a glance:
- A friend persuaded me to buy a 5-day Fibonacci trade workshop. It was expensive, it cost what I was earning for a month at work.
- I burned my first account because I wanted to earn money immediately from the knowledge I bought.
- I was "too stupid" to understand Fibonacci and get paid for it, so I bought a scalping strategy. Besides, scalping is trading with minute candlesticks which means you can earn quickly compared to day candlesticks.
- I burned another trading account because I was very impatient and wanted to earn here and now. Again the same mistake.
- I bought the renko rate because the renko candles show the real price movement without time. After all, the charts looked clear and they were so beautiful. I was delighted with the clarity of the chart and the color indicators. They winked at me like Christmas lights.
- I burned this account because I didn't follow the rules of trading (I didn't stick to the checklist) and entered too fast.
- I felt that these strategies were not working properly, so I bought the Repeat Pattern Strategy on the M30 from a Cancun trader. I believed that my life would change now, especially since the course cost as much as I earned at work for a month. I did it again.
- I also burned this account because the strategy was too general and I wasn't sure if I was opening trades correctly. I often felt that I was acting by the rules and the trainer said that I was not.
- As the paid courses did not work, I became interested in the free Price Action courses. Everyone praised it at industry conferences organized in large cities. I started studying free YouTube videos.
- I burned another account because each YouTuber was showing different rules. During this period of trading, I was using probably all the strategies I have learned at once. It was pure chaos. It couldn't have ended well.
- I hired a trainer to teach me to control my emotions. During this period, my emotional problems at home intensified.
- I hired a coach to help me build a business out of trading. I wanted to become harder and more confident. Just as Mark Douglas advised.
- I hired a female mentor because she was a very disciplined trader and used all of the trader's tools. I was still learning to stick to the checklist to see if the strategy was working for me.
- I still had trouble sticking to the trading rules. I felt silly and helpless. In desperation, I started asking in all possible discussion groups: how do I become a disciplined trader? Unfortunately, I did not get any wise answer. Everyone just wrote: read Douglas, read Douglas, read Douglas. I bought this book, read it twice, printed the rules and placed it in a frame next to the desk where I am trading. But hell, I still couldn't stick to these rules. I was still missing something. And I didn't know what.
- Meanwhile, people from Facebook groups started laughing at me. A very famous trader in my country teased me in one of the Asian groups when I asked how to develop discipline in trading and not get carried away. The other one said I must be stupid because only a fool cannot do the simple things on a checklist. I was mentally devastated. What if they're right and I'm just a snowman? It seems that everyone around is smart and earns money, and only I have a problem. A problem worth ridiculing and embarrassing me.
- I went back to Renko to put the mentor's knowledge into practice.
- I burned another account because I didn't believe the strategy was working for me and I made mistakes.
- I hired a mentor, a former military man, now a businessman. He taught me the M1 ichimoku. He also tried to teach me to stick to the trading plan 100%. With no exception. Tough guy. He gave me a professional trading plan.
- I burned this ichimoku account because I didn't know how to be like him: stick to 100% trading plan. Then he said that if I didn't get better, he would stop helping me. Let me add that the aid was paid. Unfortunately, I had a monkey mind when trading, although the glowing indicators have been replaced with pastel colors to keep them from giving me such a dopamine rush. We have finished cooperation. He wasn't going to fix my self-destructive approach to trading.
- I hired a psychologist. I asked for help with managing my emotions while trading.
- I got advice from one of the earning traders. Important in trading are: 5% Strategy, 15% Money Management, the rest is working on yourself, your psyche, emotions and following the rules of trading. And that's 80%, and we call it trading psychology.
- The truth is, you can learn most strategies in one weekend. Money management next weekend. By sitting over the candles for months or even years, you'll learn a lot about yourself. About your thoughts. About your emotions. About your actions. This is what we call working on ourselves. The better you work on yourself, the more profitable trading will be. You cannot kill your emotions, but you can tame them like a monster. This is called emotional management.
- The unexpected breakthrough came when a friend recommended me an online course on creating habits, resolutions, and routines. Although it cost as much as 3,000, it was of great value that I found psychological knowledge based on human research. I have not found this in any book I have read so far. Why? Again: books teach good advice, but don't show HOW to do something. And this course showed. Moreover, it was not knowledge out of nowhere. It was knowledge supported by hard scientific research.
- It turned out that scientists have been conducting various types of experiments for years and we already know what factors influence the formation of appropriate habits, and what contribute to the pursuit of self-destruction.
- It was a bull's eye that changed my life and trading. Yet a few years ago everyone said I was stupid ...
- So I first implemented into my life habits related to healthy eating, regular sports and going to the gym, personal development, getting up early, going to bed regularly, training concentration, taking care of my emotions and many others.
- As I became disciplined in my life, I introduced trading habits and resolutions to help me trade and improve in it.
- In the end, I did what I had been working on for several years: I opened deals according to the checklist more than 92% of the time. This means that out of 100 trades only 8 were opened against the trading plan. Then I increased my effectiveness to almost 100%. Now my ex-mentor would be proud of me.
- My mother died, David-19 came and I lost a lot of money as a result of the inheritance where everyone was earning money. Again, I thought maybe all of these traders were right and I'm just plain stupid.
- I went with my wife to a marriage counseling center. She said I lock myself in my room and trade for half a day, but I do not earn anything. So I'm probably stupid.
- Divorce
- Moving to England and starting life from scratch
- I found an old strategy of the only trader listed by name in metatrader 4 and started using it. I hired an assistant who checked historical data for me on charts from the last months. This is how I created a hybrid alligator and renko strategy for the SP500.
- As a disciplined trader like never before and with a strategy that finally worked (for me), I doubled my trading account. For the first time in my life. I achieved this after four long years of studying myself (trading psychology).
- When I moved to the UK, I met new people. In this supportive environment, I won. However, on the days when I was arguing with someone, I was losing. The fun started all over again.
- I realized that my trainers, mentors, psychologist and coaches were right: emotions at home influence emotions in business and trading.
- The solution is to develop such strong trading habits and construct such strong solutions and procedures for each circumstance.
- Then I'm like Zen. The trader's steadfast, calm mind. I don't do stupid things when I'm emotional because I know these simple laws:
- High emotions = low quality thinking.
- Low emotions = high-quality thinking (and acting according to the trading plan).
- Today I only trade when I have decreased my emotions.
- To stop doing stupid things means not to waste capital unreasonably. Trading wisely means earning calmly and steadily. You just need to find your way around to understand your thoughts and emotions in your own way. This is what Psychology of Trading is for me. It is a never-ending work on yourself. Every day you trade, you have to solve puzzles from scratch. You are perfecting yourself daily in the spirit of Zen.
- You can't annihilate emotions. They will always be with us. Fear, greed, hope, euphoria, etc. However, they can be managed. You can also introduce appropriate habits, resolutions, and routines into your trading that will work DESPITE your emotions.
- I had a problem with emotions in trading and self-destructiveness. I managed to create procedures, implementing habits, routines. This also translated into profits.
FROM COACHES.
- Albert Einstein once said: We cannot solve problems using the same thought pattern we were using when they arose.
- Often you need someone next to you, an unbiased observer to guide you from where you are right now and help you choose the azimuth. However, it’s hard to hire someone like that, if you don't feel it can help you. If you do not know who the coach is, you will definitely not hire one.
- I knew. I hired.
- I've learned that I can't kill emotions. Only psychopaths have few emotions in them. I can only MANAGE my emotions and choose a competitive response that will get you where you want to go, instead of choosing the same response that usually led you astray.
- Choose one strategy
- Choose one setup
- Choose one instrument
- Train discipline. How long? Until effect.
- Use all the tools of a trader to: prepare before trading, use them during trading, use them for post-trading analysis, for improving yourself as a person when you are not trading, for training yourself when you are not trading.
- You can adopt any strategy and win with it. There is only one condition: you must learn the psychology of trading. Otherwise, emotions, thoughts, and unwise actions will destroy you. You will burn your trading accounts and you won't know why. And there is one reason: you haven't done your homework. You haven't started learning the psychology of trading.
- Money likes silence. Concentrate on working on yourself. Avoid signal groups, MLM forex and other strange creatures.
- Learn one setup per strategy and polish it until you master it.
- Always use the checklist. If you don't have a checklist, it means you're not making decisions and always doing things differently. Trading is about repeatability, not creativity in opening positions in a thousand different ways, because that's what your intuition tells you.
- During the weekend you will learn strategy and money management. The rest is working on yourself, your weaknesses, strengths, psyche, attitude, managing emotions, managing internal dialogue. Find tools to help you with this.
- Ask for help from a trainer or psychologist if you need it.
- Buy valuable training and redo the material.
- Grow. Work on yourself.
- I have read Mark Douglas twice. Mark gives us the Five Fundamental Truths and the Seven Principles of Consistency. I printed out its rules and hung it over my desk. But I still couldn't follow the rules.
- I wanted to find a book that teaches how to stick to the rules. However, I did not find. Most of them tell you WHAT to do. But it won't teach you HOW to do it. There is no such answer. Why? Because few people have this knowledge. Anyone can give you good advice. Not everyone has the gift of teaching you to apply this.
- It's all simple, after all. If you trade for a consolidation breakout, you are going out of a consolidation breakout. So why some win on this strategy and others burn more accounts? Exactly. They don't know HOW to stick to the trading rules. They do not have properly developed habits.
- And this is the case with most of the books that are recommended by on the forums. Books are great. They contain great tips. It's worth buying and reading them.
- The problem only arises when you put this knowledge into practice. And you have a breakout from the consolidation, so of course you open a trade. But then the candle turns. So what are you doing? You're waiting, aren't you? Because she didn't touch the stoploss. But the price is back more strongly. Then you are scared. You lower your stop loss. You watch price approach shifted downtime. You think your current stoploss is too big and you can't lose that much.
- But the price is sure to come soon, all it takes is a little time. So with that logic you move the stoploss again. You're risking too much now. When the price gets close to that stop loss, you want to cry. The market deceived you again. You don't know what to do now. You don't know which is better. Increase SL again or accept the loss.
- Suddenly you have an idea to open the opposite position. Then you will make a profit, and when the market changes, you will not only make up for the loss, but also make profit on the trade.
- Unfortunately, such fun ends with the fact that you close both transactions at a loss. You have lost a lot of money.
- And you've just bragged about your friends with beautiful deals. Meanwhile, the last two consumed a lot of your capital.
- This is how Trading Psychology can work.
And now the question. Will the book help you solve this problem?
- Exactly. The book will not answer your questions. Trainer / mentor / psychologist / other trader: yes. They can help. I'll say more about it later.
- What else can help? If you do the right training in advance, which will develop habits in you, you will avoid this situation. But if you don't exercise, the market will eat you again. Because that's how the psychology of trading works.
- I haven't found a book that teaches you how to make a habit correctly. If you find one, please let me know. I will be happy to read it, analyse and implement everything that is written there. I am constantly trying to expand my current knowledge and experience.
- I'm not saying that books are bad. I am not saying that Mark Douglas is bad. Contrary. He is good, so are the other writers.
- You could say there is a book that teaches about habits: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Yes. It's great to read, I recommend it to everyone, not only traders. However, there is a problem with this book. It is impossible to implement the knowledge contained in it. The author shows the mechanisms and describes colorful stories. But you can't learn a habit from it. It doesn't teach it. Sorry.
- Writer and trader Jim Paul said the biggest traders have one thing in common… not doing stupid things. If overtrading leads to the account being burned, it is a stupid thing. If your revenge trading leads to the destruction of your account, this is a stupid thing. If you are not sticking to the checklist and trading as you want and breaking the rules of the game, then this is a stupid thing.
- This famous but deceased trader said that the key to not losing money is not to do stupid things.
- How was this achieved?
- With routines, resolutions and trading habits that will save you every time emotions tell you to do stupid things.
- But this is the beginning, not the end of the journey. Then you have to develop further. And without training and without the help of an outsider, it is difficult.
- I hired a psychologist and spent 6 months with him to learn to manage my emotions while trading. I learned from her that everything is related: my life with trading. If I argue with my wife it has a dramatic effect on my trading. So I can't learn to trade in isolation from my life.
- I've learned how to balance my life more with trading, how to see anything that can negatively affect my trading, even the non-obvious things.
- My ex-wife has repeatedly stated that I failed because I studied trading for several years and did not make any money.
- The truth is, I will keep learning for as long as I need to. To achieve the effect. It doesn't mean I'm stupid. I just need more time for this. Despite my failures, I did not give up, I was persistent. These are positive qualities that my wife did not notice.
- Accountability for the results. Nobody knows me as well as I do. Nobody will live for me, only I will. I have to make difficult decisions. Also financial, such as opening and closing trades.
- My mindfulness trainer is very good at solving problems with emotions. I learned much more from her than from my psychologist.
- She has helped me reach a higher level of trading by using mindfulness in trading. There is no time now to show how powerful this tool is when you use it for trading. But learning to use mindfulness while trading changes everything for the better. Why?
- Since you suddenly know exactly what influences your decisions, you've learned how your brain works when trading, and now you have the option of choosing a different path. No more doing bad things that eat up your income. Now you can choose wise things to do, such as sticking to your checklist every time you open a position.
- I am graduated of the course, which teaches you how to implement any chosen habit / routine / resolution into your life. In my country yearly cost of it was 3.000. That's was a lot for me. But I took treat that like an investment on myself. Thanks to this course, I implemented many habits, resolutions and routines that every professional trader uses, and that I had to learn in order to become one. The best part is that the course is based on research. Today we know what works and what doesn't in the process of creating habits. Those habits can work for people as long as we want to have them in our life.
- Perhaps the worst news for you will be that you will not find this knowledge in books. You can't buy it on amazon or ebay.
- People often wondered how it happened that I lost 12 kg at the age of 45, how did it happen that in 2009 I started selling cosmetics, how did I learn to invest? How much time did I spend doing this? And the truth is, I did all of these because I learned to create my routines. It took me a long time, but it was worth it. Time will always pass. So what are you waiting for? It is better to start working for your better tomorrow now.
- And look. If you want to lose weight, you can introduce a daily routine to walk for an hour each day before work. You can also go to the gym before work. And now it all comes down to repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. Some time will pass and your goal will be achieved.
- How did I learn to invest? I bought the first shares in advance. It was over 20 years ago. Then I invested in funds. Then in gold. Then I found a very good forex training and every day I decided to put aside 60 minutes and work on investment materials. Day after day, day after day, day after day, day after day ... Every day I did something for the development of my business. Piece by piece. Like a puzzle.
- Then I started browsing all kinds of financial instruments like currencies, indices, metals, orange juice. Every day at least one hour. Day after day, day after day, day after day ...
- Such a routine. You do something and repeat it every day. You also do this on Saturdays and Sundays, even if you don't feel like it. And you often do this also on holidays and days off, and even on birthdays. And now it turns out that some time passes, several months, and very quickly the time that you have learned to invest is passing.
- Now how to expand your business. You need knowledge. Let's say every day for half an hour in the morning you will do some courses, training, and do it every day (every day, every day, every day, every day, every day, every day).
- The fact that you have such a morning routine makes it much easier for you to just achieve your goal. The best writers write for an hour every day. Or for 30 minutes. Or for 15 minutes. But they do it every day. If they are not currently writing any book, they will be writing articles. The point is to have a routine like this, to build a routine like this, because it is much easier for you to control and develop certain things with that routine.
- And now how to create these routines?
- First you need to answer the question what is your priority? If, for example, learning a foreign language is your priority for the coming years, set yourself up as a morning routine every day that you will learn the language half an hour or an hour before work. And that time will pass. It will pass very quickly. You will be able to speak this language after this time.
- Another example, suppose your body is your priority now. So you walk for an hour every day. Your priority is to develop your business, so you will read a book, listen to an audiobook, or take a course every day.
- You will build a routine that will help you achieve your success. She will keep you in it all. It will lead you to this success. It's about doing this every day. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
- I know it sounds so simple. It seems so easy. Man, you didn't discover anything new. You didn't invent the wheel from the beginning. However, what people don't understand is that these simple things only sound simple. But when it comes to their implementation, then only the PROBLEMS begin. This is when DIFFICULTIES begin to appear.
- Try to maintain a routine each day that you will be reading, say, 30 pages of a book from Monday to Sunday. Build such a routine for at least 90 days. Or for six months. Or for a year. And you will see how extremely difficult it will be.
- So simple things seem simple until you start doing them. Because it's easy to say something and then it's harder to do it.
- Therefore, I recommend you to build such a routine and stick to that routine. For example, try taking a cold shower every day. A trivial, simple thing. You will see that after a week your brain will start deceiving you and telling you that you don't need it. What is it for? Isn't warm water better? Basically your brain will try to make it not easy for you. He will fight you.
- But if you build up this routine, at some point you will practice it and it will be very natural for you and it will be very easy for you.
I have my life and my trading routine. I use it for 6 months sometimes and then I change my routine because my priorities change as well.
- But sometimes I have a routine with me for a very long time. For the few years.
- I perform the morning ritual perfectly every day
- I exercise appropriately at least three times a week
- I only eat what I have planned in the execution plan four times a week for breakfast and lunch
- Every day I spend at least 15 minutes on my own development according to the plan in the fifteen-minute development tool
- I take a cold shower every day as per the execution schedule
- On trading days, I follow the Preparation for Trading Procedure
- On each trading day, I complete the Swiss Journal and document each transaction with a screenshot or a video
- During the first two 30-minute trading sessions, I regain control of my time and give up all entertainment in accordance with the Execution Plan
- On trading days, I stick to the established rules of trading
- Concentration and Mindfulness Training. Every day I train mindfulness for at least 10 Minutes as described in Insights.
- I do the Mental Exercises in accordance with the Execution Plan
- Every trading day I perform an analysis of trades and emotions
- Every Saturday I do a weekly analysis of my trades and emotions while trading
- The Pareto principle works well in trading: 20% of success is money management and strategy, 80% is all we call a trading psychology.
- During the weekend you will learn energy management and strategy. It takes months and years to work on yourself.
- Virtually any strategy can give you an edge in the market. However, non-compliance with the rules of strategy and entering into overtrading, revenge trading, looking for adventure and dopamine on the market, incompetent management of emotions such as greed, hope, fear of loss, euphoria are the ingredients of what can be called self-destruction. Everyone has it. Everyone has to fight to control it, or it will rule it.
- Ignoring the psychology of trading is like ignoring the seasons. Instead of developing, you become ignorant.
- In psychology books you'll learn what to do, but seldom learn HOW to do it. the books are full of wise advice. However, you will have difficulty implementing this knowledge.
- It will take you years of work to find research, organize it, organize it, and figure out what you need to trade. It is better if someone has already put this knowledge into an appropriate training program for changing habits. You will save time and money. I did so.
If you understand that the psychology of trading is 80% of your success, then read on.
MY BIGGEST PROBLEMS were that I was not sticking to the rules of the strategy, so I had no way of knowing if it worked for me. If I made a statistical 30 trades and half traded against the checklist, how would I know if the strategy was working or not?
In order to find out if the strategy works for me (or for you) i need to have 100% traded according to my trading plan. One and the same setup is best for statistical purposes. I know one girl who stubbornly trades one setup and squeezes money out of the market. This is a 50% pullback setup. Very simple. It's easy to find on the chart. All that's left is to stick to the checklist.
However, I had a problem with that. I couldn't hold on.
I was increasing my flight, stopping, going in too early or too late. All because of emotions. Several years of searching for knowledge about the discipline and then a long training of this discipline allowed me to obtain over 92% of transactions according to the checklist. Now I know what works in my strategy. How it works. When it works. And how can I improve myself to get more out of the market?
Finally, I have a few questions for you:
- Do you make the mistakes that I did?
- Do you want to unlearn yourself from doing the wrong things?
- Do you want to develop the habits needed by a professional trader?
- Is the knowledge, I just showed you, interesting for you and do you want to learn more?
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