When a trader doesn't understand market behavior well enough to
know what he is going to do and under what market conditions he is going
to do it—but if at the same time, he is very attracted to the action and the
opportunities he knows exist and if he is also impatient with the learning
process—his impatience and attraction will make him feel compelled to do
something, even if he doesn't know what he should do.
They must know what they are doing or at least they know more than him. If he does what they do, or better yet, identifies the most successful trader and does what that trader does, then he too can make money.
They all focus blame outside of oneself for unsatisfactory results.
In an unlimited environment, the less structure you create for yourself, the less accountable you are, the more easily you will be swept along by the force of events, and the less control you seem to have over your life. However, having less structure has the benefit of shifting the responsibility for the events in your life to other unidentified forces. This is precisely why so many traders have such a strong belief in superstitions. If a person refuses to make any connection between his thoughts, intents, skills, and results, then it is very easy to associate one's success or failure to something like the tie one had on that day or inadvertently making some gesture and then finding oneself in a losing trade and associating the gesture with the loss.
If you can't define your own behavior and that of the markets, you can't learn how to repeat your wins or prevent your losses.
When you win it is so pleasurable, it creates a need to repeat it and compels you to try again. When you follow the crowd (instead of anticipating the crowd, which would take planning) or trade off news items, tips, or isolated signals from technical systems, the anticipation of the next attempt to win automatically produces fear and anxiety.
Why? Because, you can't define the market conditions or the decisionmaking process that produced the last win, and so you can't assure yourself of the next.
If you don't know what you did to win the last time, you obviously don't know what to do to keep from losing this time. The end result is intense anxiety, frustration, confusion, and fear. You feel out of control, experiencing a sense of powerlessness as you are swept along by the ensuing events and wondering what is the market going to do to you today.
Consider that the markets can't do anything to any trader who completely trusts himself to act appropriately, in his best interests, under all market conditions. And before people can trust themselves in this manner, they would first have to define all those conditions and be able to recognize them.
Understandably, taking responsibility is something that is extremely difficult to do. We don't live in a society that has a highly evolved concept of the growth process, and as a result, we learn to become very intolerant of "mistakes." I say this because we are basically taught as children and, therefore, in turn teach our children through our ridicule of them that mistakes are something that diminish one as a person. Ridicule does not enhance a child's willingness to accept responsibility, and if he doesn't, the typical parent will then criticize the child for being irresponsible.
Taking responsibility is a function of self-acceptance. You can measure this degree of self-acceptance by how positively or negatively you think of yourself when you make what you perceive as a mistake. The more negatively you think of yourself, the greater your tendency to avoid taking responsibility, so you can avoid the pain of your harsh thoughts, thus generating a fear of making mistakes. However, the greater the degree of self-acceptance you have for yourself, the more positive your thoughts will be and the greater the degree of insight you will be able to extract from an experience, instead of generating fear. The more self-accepting you are, the easier it is to learn because you are not trying to avoid certain information.
They must know what they are doing or at least they know more than him. If he does what they do, or better yet, identifies the most successful trader and does what that trader does, then he too can make money.
They all focus blame outside of oneself for unsatisfactory results.
In an unlimited environment, the less structure you create for yourself, the less accountable you are, the more easily you will be swept along by the force of events, and the less control you seem to have over your life. However, having less structure has the benefit of shifting the responsibility for the events in your life to other unidentified forces. This is precisely why so many traders have such a strong belief in superstitions. If a person refuses to make any connection between his thoughts, intents, skills, and results, then it is very easy to associate one's success or failure to something like the tie one had on that day or inadvertently making some gesture and then finding oneself in a losing trade and associating the gesture with the loss.
If you can't define your own behavior and that of the markets, you can't learn how to repeat your wins or prevent your losses.
When you win it is so pleasurable, it creates a need to repeat it and compels you to try again. When you follow the crowd (instead of anticipating the crowd, which would take planning) or trade off news items, tips, or isolated signals from technical systems, the anticipation of the next attempt to win automatically produces fear and anxiety.
Why? Because, you can't define the market conditions or the decisionmaking process that produced the last win, and so you can't assure yourself of the next.
If you don't know what you did to win the last time, you obviously don't know what to do to keep from losing this time. The end result is intense anxiety, frustration, confusion, and fear. You feel out of control, experiencing a sense of powerlessness as you are swept along by the ensuing events and wondering what is the market going to do to you today.
Consider that the markets can't do anything to any trader who completely trusts himself to act appropriately, in his best interests, under all market conditions. And before people can trust themselves in this manner, they would first have to define all those conditions and be able to recognize them.
Understandably, taking responsibility is something that is extremely difficult to do. We don't live in a society that has a highly evolved concept of the growth process, and as a result, we learn to become very intolerant of "mistakes." I say this because we are basically taught as children and, therefore, in turn teach our children through our ridicule of them that mistakes are something that diminish one as a person. Ridicule does not enhance a child's willingness to accept responsibility, and if he doesn't, the typical parent will then criticize the child for being irresponsible.
Taking responsibility is a function of self-acceptance. You can measure this degree of self-acceptance by how positively or negatively you think of yourself when you make what you perceive as a mistake. The more negatively you think of yourself, the greater your tendency to avoid taking responsibility, so you can avoid the pain of your harsh thoughts, thus generating a fear of making mistakes. However, the greater the degree of self-acceptance you have for yourself, the more positive your thoughts will be and the greater the degree of insight you will be able to extract from an experience, instead of generating fear. The more self-accepting you are, the easier it is to learn because you are not trying to avoid certain information.
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