Biggest advice i can give you is to not post setups on this forum... I can tell why your doing it, its not for feedback and to develop as a trader from more experienced advice... Its to try show everyone how 'smart' you are... And this isn't a criticism, i was the same.
Through believing you can call markets and through trying to show people you can you will create a disillusion of your trading ability... This in turn will mean that when your results give you the facts; That your inexperienced, new to trading and still driving with a big fat 'L' you will feel major disappointment and anger towards your performance because you are basing your expected results on your disillusional expectations of your 'super trader' illusion.
Therefore you will fear losses - The pain involved in them, the self-hatred, the disappointment, the anger @ your disappointment... Because you were basing your performance on a belief of a different skill level.
Fearing losses will start to make you try to avoid the possibilities of losses and in doing so avoid progression and the opportunity of learning and progressing... Hiding yourself away from the truth/reality which is that your just a noob. You will start searching for ways and excuses to avoid trading and avoid facing the possibilities of losses - Your perception of the market and perception of the probability of a setup to take or not will be seen with red-tinted spectacles.
You will become fearful of the pain that you associate with winners and this in turn will make you avoid them through excuses - 'How about a long/short approach, how about spreads, how about options where i know my risk before' always avoiding doing the trading that has the potential for losses because your scared they will become a reality and once again hurt your emotions, your ego and your beliefs about your disillusion.
When you experience losses you will feel angry, like the market is unfair, for not confirming your disillusion of how good a trader you are.... This in turn, thinking your better than you are will stop you learning the neccesarily skills that you need to progress to the next lesson...
You may disagree with me; and i'm not an expert on trading psychology but i feel that what i wrote is very relevant to you and until you can overcome it you won't go anywhere... You can try avoid it and think good trading skills will overcome it; It won't.
Concentrate hardly on your real motives for trading; I feel you will find that it was never the money... You wanted the market to tell you how smart you are, you wanted to show-off that you can trade, you wanted to prove to yourself you could do it, you wanted respect recognition and to impress your parents...
When you get losses - the pain is due to you PROVING that actually you aren't amazing, you aren't the best, you are a noob and this hurts because your motives were to prove the others...
You may find on this discovery that maybe trading isn't for you, or you can decide that actually you want to trade for the money... In which case you have to face these problems and get over them.
You can tell me that you don't have these problems but i strongly will disagree... I can tell
Your posting a random GBP/USD trade that you have no money on, having stated that you wanted the journal closed... It says 'LOOK AT ME! I did a trade, watch and see how right i am, i'm the best' - This will just feed the disillusion of your true skill...
I really advise that you stop all this and really focus on your behaviour before you develop very bad habits.
This isn't criticism btw; just serious advice you should take, face the psychology early, look into who you really are and what your problems are and weaknesses, find the sources...
Yes, you want to show everyone how good you are and show you can pick tops - Why? - Because you want approval - Why? Because... This you've got to answer... Because i'm insecure, because i've never been recognized as good at anything and you just want to show everyone you can, maybe its that you want to constitute trading abilities for lack of skills in other things... Whatever that may be; Maybe because you don't accept or like who you are; So your forcing yourself to be someone better and therefore every loss is an insult of your ego and another reminder of who you are and how much you suck ... Then you've got to think, but WHY do i not accept myself ...
Facing these demons and analysing yourself will be the hardest thing you've ever done; especially if you have deep-rooted fears, angers, hatred, depression... You have to get over the disillusion of your ability and face the reality of who you are; You will see how every behaviour you've ever done in your life has been to feed these insecurities, to hide from who you really are... Self-defensive.
At the end however you will be so relieved, your entire life will be better and you'll be a much, much better trader i hope.
When i analyse myself in such detail; Its annoying, i really don't want to - Its upsetting and brings up really painful things, but i know i have to... Everything then becomes better; You lose all the insecurities and behaviours that avoided the insecurities...
Let me give you an example from my own life... I use to hate teachers criticising my work ... Use to feel really insulted and angry when they said i was crap - Because i knew that i wasn't, i knew i was smart... I had a disillusion of my abilities and thus i felt anger @ a lack of fulfilled fake expectations. I couldn't face my skill-level and the results this achieved, so i blaimed the teacher and the subjectivity of the classroom rather than facing my own inability and improving myself...
I realise now that it was an insecurity with being analysed and i thought, why do i care about being analysed and i realised that it was a fear of losing ... I started making excuses for the exams before they even began so that when i inevitably failed i wouldn't feel bad... This in turn created me to be 'not caring' and not trying; so that i could hide from the disappointment of bad feelings which would finally tell the FACTS about my skill level ... I was hiding from these things and i thought why... Why am i insecure about my level of ability in school work, why am i hiding from finding the truth, and i found that it was because i wasn't happy with who i was; i wanted to be someone else; i didn't accept myself and therefore i hide from myself... Until i faced this i couldn't change and then i really analysed myself and why i don't like myself and i found out why and it was because of these reasons; Because i fear failing, because i make excuses, because i don't commit, because i never commited myself to working out, because i never bothered jogging and getting healthy... In understanding this it allowed me to change myself and it really did change my life...
Even looking back now; i think the reason i started trading; My true motive; was that i was afraid of failing in a 'boss-orientated' career - I was afraid of his criticisms towards me, afraid of failing a university degree, afraid of not achieving the financial success my disillusioned self thought i deserved.
I wouldn't face challenges with my full attention and objectivity and ability and therefore i would never do anything to my true real potential; always a fearful, 'criticizing' hideful attempt. Everything i've ever done has been based around avoiding my fears of criticisms of failure... I would avoid taking penalities in case i missed and got criticised because i had a disillusion that i was great at football - for anyone to tell me otherwise was a massive insult.
Until i identified all this; i wouldn't move past and improve myself... I don't think i could have ever succesfully traded until i realised my real motives and moved past them. I wouldn't face challenges with my full attention and objectivity and ability and
Hope this helps, even if its a tricky one
