Open discuission for what you've found is working for you in managing your psychology. Has it been taking a course from a trading psychologist or hypnotherapy or something else? I've take a number of courses from trading psycholgists, done hypnotherapy, visualization (not consistently on a daily basis), listened to trading affirmations, read books on psychology, meditate, be mindful, breathwork, etc...all the things that are taught in various trading psychology courses to better manage your psychology in the trading environment. However, it seems I frequently allow what's going on externally to affect how I trade. Case in point, if I'm having a bad work week in my job or transitioning from one job to another or having a health scare or any other emotionally high triggering event outside of trading, my trading is at the best, not so good and at the worst, I'll have a day where I totally go on tilt and by the time the tilt episode is over, 1/2 of my account is wiped out or worse. So I blow through my daily loss limit, way over trade/revenge trade in the efforts to stop the bleeding and get some of my money back only to dig the hole deeper.
I'm a day trader and on a normal day, depending on how long I'm in front of the screens, I'll take anywhere from 1 to 8 trades. On my blow up days, I'm up to 15+ trades. For me, spinning out of control like this happens quickly. I'll look back and see that I've taken 10 trades in a 30 minute period and I'm not a high frequency day trades. In other words, the method I use is not to scalp for a tick or two. Obviously, the prudent thing to do is to be mindful enough to recognize when the emotions start to surface and then turn your screens off or walk away and do something else. And I do this frequently. However, the one time I don't and go on full tilt, it really affects my P&L, confidence and feeling like I'll ever make it as a consistently profitable trader.
Sorry for the long winded "question/explanation." If anyone out here has anything that works for them on a consistent basis to better manage your psychology in high emotionally charged periods, please let me know!

" I'll take anywhere from 1 to 8 trades. On my blow up days, I'm up to 15+ trades. For me, spinning out of control like this happens quickly. I'll look back and see that I've taken 10 trades in a 30 minute period..."

Depending on your platform, you should be able to program something that limits the number of trades per day to 8-10. Once you hit that amount, you are locked out of trades for the rest of the day.

This MIGHT work. Or, it may cause "crazy" trading as you get close to the limit, or it may lead you to seek revenge at start of next trading day.

Another suggestion: If you are swayed by facts and data, print out a table of daily results with number of trades and daily P/L. If what you say is true, then it should be easy to for you to look at it and say "the data says stop after 8-10 trades, so that is what I'll do."


A final suggestion: get a trading partner/overseer who will cut you off at 8-10 trades. They will log you out of your account and change your password, until the next day.

powerthin 

anything that works for them on a consistent basis to better manage your psychology in high emotionally charged periods, please let me know!

Hello, Emotionally Charged - to me this is a description of when I am not calm and present enough to be trading. Even when I think that I can overcome the intensity of the other happenings in the day I have ultimately found that I can not. I found that I need to respect the time that my mind needs to work through the intensity of events. To do that I just decide not to trade and go do something physical and low mental intensity. Once I gave in to the realization that I do not have to trade every day to achieve my goal it became much easier to just move away from the keyboard / screen.

The good days (relaxed and present) are enjoyable and overall profitable enough to look forward to. This is the first phase of a good trade setup.

BuffaloFarmer21 

Hello, Emotionally Charged - to me this is a description of when I am not calm and present enough to be trading. Even when I think that I can overcome the intensity of the other happenings in the day I have ultimately found that I can not. I found that I need to respect the time that my mind needs to work through the intensity of events. To do that I just decide not to trade and go do something physical and low mental intensity. Once I gave in to the realization that I do not have to trade every day to achieve my goal it became much easier to just move away from the keyboard / screen. The good days (relaxed and present) are enjoyable and overall profitable enough to look forward to. This is the first phase of a good trade setup.

Thank you, BuffaloFarmer. I need to keep that thought, "I do not have to trade every day to achieve my goal..." first and foremost in my mind. Especially, during the times of heightened emotional intensity. It's interesting how all these things we know just seem to go out the window when intense emotions kick in.
Happy Trading!

kevinkdog 

" I'll take anywhere from 1 to 8 trades. On my blow up days, I'm up to 15+ trades. For me, spinning out of control like this happens quickly. I'll look back and see that I've taken 10 trades in a 30 minute period..." Depending on your platform, you should be able to program something that limits the number of trades per day to 8-10. Once you hit that amount, you are locked out of trades for the rest of the day. This MIGHT work. Or, it may cause "crazy" trading as you get close to the limit, or it may lead you to seek revenge at start of next trading day. Another suggestion: If you are swayed by facts and data, print out a table of daily results with number of trades and daily P/L. If what you say is true, then it should be easy to for you to look at it and say "the data says stop after 8-10 trades, so that is what I'll do." A final suggestion: get a trading partner/overseer who will cut you off at 8-10 trades. They will log you out of your account and change your password, until the next day.

Thank you, Kevinkdog, I haven't looked into programming into my platform a set limit for trades for the day, but I'll definitely consider this as a hard stop to put in place. Thank you for your help!

Hello, although I can not relate directly with the idea of external things affecting my trading like you said, I try to recognize that in life and in trading there will be pain. As much as I like to avoid pain, it will eventually happen. So once I got comfortable with the idea that I will be in pain, either mentally, emotionally, or physically, at some point in time I really became a calmer, happier person. The thing I tell myself when there is pain is that this is only an experience. Its all an experience and I will come out the other side just fine in most cases.

blackgrey45 

Hello, although I can not relate directly with the idea of external things affecting my trading like you said, I try to recognize that in life and in trading there will be pain. As much as I like to avoid pain, it will eventually happen. So once I got comfortable with the idea that I will be in pain, either mentally, emotionally, or physically, at some point in time I really became a calmer, happier person. The thing I tell myself when there is pain is that this is only an experience. Its all an experience and I will come out the other side just fine in most cases.

Thems wise words. I hope folks are listening.

I think a part of the subtext of this statement is....dont be so results driven, be more process driven.

You don't and can't control the result.

You can only control your process, which leads you to the decisions you make.

And ultimately, your decisions is all you can control. And even doing that is pretty difficult, as we can all attest to. OP included.