What you say is all true.
. I normally don't comment on anything i have not seen or experienced.

You need to eval yrself. However what you call finish line is it really finish line. What if it grew to 30k or 40k..it would be finish?

What i said...is it's not about the money. And hence some also said about pnl. It's about the PROCESS. If there is a process...there is a plan...there is 0 pscyo involved. Do not get me wrong... pscyo is involved when going for the massive gain...or putting in a trade when others r not. Else when a plan=process in place 0 psyco is needed. This is what systematic traders have in place. Machines have 0 psyco...but the same can be done discretionary

Well i wish u the best.... The journey has to be travelled alone. There will be many giving advise especially when asked on a public forum. How you take it and extract the essence and put it to work yrself is yr effort.

This may be a goal-line anxiety if it is associated with a goal or target level in your mind. One solution that may help to reduce the anxiety is to give yourself multiple goals. For example you could have a bronze, silver, gold, platinum level. So when you get to the goal level you won't focus on it as much. You might also reduce your trading size.

rdaytrader 

Hi all, I'm interested to know if anybody has had the same problem I've been facing. The problem is as follows: I seem to have a problem to pass beyond a certain point. This point usually is the starting capital or some other number in your head (e.g. a round big number like 30K or 50K) that is psychologically important to you for whatever reason. It goes like this: In case of passing beyond starting capital: I fund my account with a certain capital. I start to trade Account goes into drawdown (say like -30%) I come back slowly until the original funded capital is almost restored (say like -5%) Then a couple of bad trades/days happen and account is in drawdown again (-30% or more) In case of passing a big number: I fund my account with a certain capital (e.g. 20k). I start to trade Account slowly builds up over many days (20k+) A certain big number (say like 30k) is within reach Then a couple of bad trades/days happen and account is back to 20k again This happened to me a couple of times already and it is really frustrating. What I think is happening is that I mentally get into a sort of overconfidence and then basically overtrade/revenge trade/disregard my process and all that stuff, causing the '1 step forward 2 step back' effect. I also know what to do (which is keep focusing on the process, keeping losses small) but I still haven't been able to pull it off, so I'm still dealing with it. It basically feels like tantalization but I know that is the trap that one must not fall into, so I'm disregarding that. I'm interested to hear if anybody has had the same problem and would like to discuss about it. E.g. if they've overcome it and if yes what special things were needed or not. Or if people never overcame it and maybe even caused people to stop trading altogether. Or maybe it was not a problem at all for other people. I think it's an interesting psychological subject in trading or maybe I'm the only one in the world that has this problem. Thanks

I totally agree with with paps' responses here. I feel compelled to respond as I have been there and done this multiple times. So, here is my $0.02.

The harsh reality is this is one of those gaps in metal skills required to survive in this unconventional business. You have to train your mind to completely disassociate yourself from prior trades, PnL etc. Every trade happens on a clean state.

One way to do this is to first reduce your trading time per day to 1 or 2 hours or lesser, so that you can focus and conserve mental energy. In that trading time, try to mentally reinforce the fact that every trade is independent and work hard on executing consistently (from a process perspective). Some mental exercises like imagining erasing a white board or tossing used papers into trash or shutting down a vault with dumped papers (for later review) after every trade will help.

Ofcourse, a pre-requisite to all of this is a well thought out trading plan.

Cheers.

As paps said the only way to solve this is yourself. You need to work it out. There is an underlying psychological issue here that you need to work through. Be prepared to find things inside your self you don't like or understand. Enlightenment can be a difficult journey but ultimately rewarding. I suspect the root lies in the self worth/self sabotage area or possibly the opposite. Analyse how you see yourself in others eyes.




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paps 

What you say is all true. . I normally don't comment on anything i have not seen or experienced. You need to eval yrself. However what you call finish line is it really finish line. What if it grew to 30k or 40k..it would be finish? What i said...is it's not about the money. And hence some also said about pnl. It's about the PROCESS. If there is a process...there is a plan...there is 0 pscyo involved. Do not get me wrong... pscyo is involved when going for the massive gain...or putting in a trade when others r not. Else when a plan=process in place 0 psyco is needed. This is what systematic traders have in place. Machines have 0 psyco...but the same can be done discretionary Well i wish u the best.... The journey has to be travelled alone. There will be many giving advise especially when asked on a public forum. How you take it and extract the essence and put it to work yrself is yr effort.

Paps,
Thanks very much for your elaborate reply. I am talking about "finish line" but it is in fact more a psychological number or milestone. E.g. the point at which you want to increase your size, the point where you have made x amount of profit, etc. Some point that is very important to you for whatever reason. But yes, this is a mistake. Under no circumstance should any point become important in your mind. Like you say, it's about the PROCESS. Under any circumstances. So, I let the importance of the milestone get in the way of the process. This is something I will change.

So I agree with you, that there should be no psychology involved. But the psychology is still there, and comes and go without announcement. So yeah a trader should be able to supress it/disregard it, however you want to name it and continue on focusing on the process.

Thanks for your encouragement. Yes the journey has to be traveled alone. I appreciate your advice and the other advises that are posted and it seems it was a good idea to start this thread.

tpredictor 

This may be a goal-line anxiety if it is associated with a goal or target level in your mind. One solution that may help to reduce the anxiety is to give yourself multiple goals. For example you could have a bronze, silver, gold, platinum level. So when you get to the goal level you won't focus on it as much. You might also reduce your trading size.

Hi tpredictor,

Thanks for your feedback. Yes I already have these small goals. It's basically the big goal psychological effect that gets in the way. This should be managed better. I've elaborated on that in the other posts.

patrader65 

I totally agree with with paps' responses here. I feel compelled to respond as I have been there and done this multiple times. So, here is my $0.02. The harsh reality is this is one of those gaps in metal skills required to survive in this unconventional business. You have to train your mind to completely disassociate yourself from prior trades, PnL etc. Every trade happens on a clean state. One way to do this is to first reduce your trading time per day to 1 or 2 hours or lesser, so that you can focus and conserve mental energy. In that trading time, try to mentally reinforce the fact that every trade is independent and work hard on executing consistently (from a process perspective). Some mental exercises like imagining erasing a white board or tossing used papers into trash or shutting down a vault with dumped papers (for later review) after every trade will help. Ofcourse, a pre-requisite to all of this is a well thought out trading plan. Cheers.

Hi patrader65,

Thank you very much for your reply. It's great to hear you have been there and overcame this multiple times. I seem to struggle with it so your feedback is most welcome. Yes, I also see that I must completely dissassociate from prior trades, PnL, etc. And the silly thing is that I am doing this most of the time, except when the big goal is coming along. I now see that even then and in fact under any circumstances, I just need to continue in this way. I've elaborated on that in my other posts as well.

And yes I was also trading with reduced hours, but I found myself trading more when the milestone was almost there. That is really silly in hindsight. Your mental exercise examples sound interesting. And yeah, my plan was in place. But hey, without discipline, without real discipline, you can have the best plan in the world, but it will still fail. That's why I mentioned the topic of "becoming another person" and "changing your personality". I know from Big Mike he had to do this as well.

rassi 

As paps said the only way to solve this is yourself. You need to work it out. There is an underlying psychological issue here that you need to work through. Be prepared to find things inside your self you don't like or understand. Enlightenment can be a difficult journey but ultimately rewarding. I suspect the root lies in the self worth/self sabotage area or possibly the opposite. Analyse how you see yourself in others eyes. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi rassi,

Thanks very much for your feedback and advice. Yes, there definitely is a psychological issue. I've outlined that as well in my other posts. As for your suggestion about the self worth/self sabotage area. Definitely some things there that could be true. The hardest part right now for me is the discipline. Your suggestion about analysing myself in others eyes is known and have been done by me in the past already but can be helpful to revisit in forming the image of the personality that I am/want to be. Starting this thread to reach out, discuss, receive advice and hopefully also benefiting others has been great so far and is definitely helpful in overcoming this psychological issue.

It is also possible this is caused by some internal conflict. The conflict could be from a few sources. Below are all the reasons I can think of that is your trouble:

(1) You really like to trade. Hitting the round number might mean there won't be a need to trade. So, in order to keep trading, you must lose. One solution is to number your goals, instead of the bronze, silver, gold system. You might use an ordinal basis such G1, G2, G3, G4, G5, G6, G7, G8, etc. Where G can stand for goal or gold.. now what you can do is write down on a G10 a level that is so far off that you'll be financially set when you hit it. Focus on that goal.

(2) Something is unfulfilling about trading for you. You're not living a balanced life. So, your brain is saying "stop trading and do something else" but you won't listen. In order to get you to quit trading, it reaches your goal target. But then you don't stop. So, it treats the scenario like a binary option: either take your account to goal state or to zero. Whatever it takes to get you to stop trading. In this case, living a more balanced life, taking more breaks, should help you.

(3) You start to focus on your goal when you get close too it. Because you are focusing on the goal, you aren't focused on the market. You're not doing the things that led you to get to the target. Again, using a gaming system where you focus on getting to level 100 or whatever might help. Every 10k is just 1 level up.

(4) Your "edge" has a tendency to have serial correlation in wins and losses built in. You are able to get close to the goal because you recognize when your edge is working and you push it. However, the serial correlation of wins eventually leads to the run stretch of losses. Your problem is due to the mathematical nature of the edge/markets. You should start to focus on new edges or expanding out if this is the problem.

(5) Your edge isn't really that significant. You manage to get to your goal state by pushing your luck. Doubling down or ignoring your stop loss. Pushing certain trades. It can work for a little while but eventually the good luck runs out. If this is the case, you need to focus on systematizing your trading.

(6) You have a problem with the trade sizing. If that's the case, just keep your size the same or gradually increase it.

rdaytrader 

Paps, Thanks very much for your elaborate reply. I am talking about "finish line" but it is in fact more a psychological number or milestone. E.g. the point at which you want to increase your size, the point where you have made x amount of profit, etc. Some point that is very important to you for whatever reason. But yes, this is a mistake. Under no circumstance should any point become important in your mind. Like you say, it's about the PROCESS. Under any circumstances. So, I let the importance of the milestone get in the way of the process. This is something I will change. So I agree with you, that there should be no psychology involved. But the psychology is still there, and comes and go without announcement. So yeah a trader should be able to supress it/disregard it, however you want to name it and continue on focusing on the process. Thanks for your encouragement. Yes the journey has to be traveled alone. I appreciate your advice and the other advises that are posted and it seems it was a good idea to start this thread.

dont suppress it. Acknowledge it. Know that the feeling is there. Be more aware of it. Once that happens you will observe a shift.