As I write this now I am not happy. I am annoyed with myself and I can feel the frustration. The words on this page are being written from a place of emotion that has manifested as anger. They are real.
I lost this morning. Twenty seven points, but, I could've been up between twelve and seventeen points and potentially even more had I had the focus and the discipline. But I didn't and I knew it which makes it even more painful. Now I am well aware that unrealised profit is just that, unrealised, so you should never live in the 'what ifs', or the 'I could've hads', because they're not real and thinking them leads to nowhere other than misery, frustration, anger and often despair.
It begins when I got out of bed later than usual and so didn't partake of my morning meditation as I wouldn't have had time before I started trading. I also acknowledged when I first woke up that I didn't feel great mentally, and the fact it was late and my 'routine' was out of whack, maybe I shouldn't trade? Nah. What if I miss a big move? (FOMO - No GOODO). So I got up, did the rest of my routine sat down and opened up my broker. Well, guess what? The prophecy came true and I missed the first move (signal) of the morning and it would've returned twenty plus points. Why did I miss it? Because I was in the toilet. This is something that happens every morning as soon as I have had my morning coffee which I am sure a lot of people can relate to. When I used to smoke it was that first cigarette that put things into motion, so to speak, but now I am a non smoker, it's good old coffee first thing in the morning that gets things moving. The problem is, I know this. It happens as regularly as clockwork, yet for some reason I don't ever seem to learn that I should either have my coffee a good half an hour before I start to trade, or a good hour after. But I don't. So although I now found myself a little more frustrated, it was still all good as I've missed moves before, and will again, and I still wasn't fully lost to my emotions. A short while later I got a signal and took a FTSE trade but it went against me and I got stopped out. That was no problem at all, I fully accepted that for what it was. However, shortly after that trade I had another signal in the DAX that I took at 09:05 and what happened over the following twenty five minutes of that trade was what ended up finally breaking me.
I live in what is called an HMO. A House of Multiple Occupation. Basically it's a large house split into 6 rooms and 6 guys live here. This creates issues sometimes with simple things like doing laundry. Now, one of my housemates is someone I don't think too highly of as I have had issues with them helping themselves to my stuff when they first moved in, and when I kicked off my things mysteriously reappeared and they tried to suggest it was probably one of the 'foreign' guys living downstairs. Deep breath. This person is basically a functioning alcoholic, prolific bullshitter and what we would call in the UK a 'pikey' but not the traditional romany kind...
He spent his day off yesterday drinking all day and as such left his washing in the machine over night. Eventually this morning he got up, and dragged himself downstairs to take it out, which then enabled me to do some washing. As you'll recall I was currently in a DAX trade, and it had been in a trading range for the last 20 minutes. A couple of times it came back to my entry price and I considered closing it for breakeven as there was a Monetary Policy Report being released in the UK at 09:45 so I thought the market was stalling and waiting for the news, but I didn't. Instead, when I realised the washing machine was probably empty I got my washing together and went downstairs to put it on. In the short time I was away what do you think happened? Yup you guessed it. The trading range broke and my trade had showed a brief profit. When I returned however, the market had also returned, gone the other way, and now my trade was showing a solid loss. I went mental. Not outwardly, but inside I was f**king seething!!! I called him all the names under the sun. I wished horrible things happened to him. I was so angry that my mindset had completely deserted me and I only saw red mist. 'That f**king lazy prick! It was his f**king fault that I missed that scalp and now my trade was losing. If he had taken his damn washing out of the machine yesterday instead of getting drunk all day, then I wouldn't have missed it.' Then I sat and watched as the market continued to rise and eventually stopped me out.
I sat dejected, cursing my luck and my housemate.
But then something happened. A spark in my brain. I had a little epiphany. It wasn't his fault what had happened. How could it be? He didn't deliberately leave his washing in the machine to screw me over when I was trading the next day.
It was my fault, and my fault alone.
It was MY fault I didn't get up on time.
It was MY fault that I drank my coffee when I did and so missed that first trade.
It was MY fault that instead of watching the market, I decided to go do laundry.
I realised that I had not been either focussed nor disciplined and THAT is why I had the morning I had. No other reason. I knew right from the beginning, before I even opened my laptop that I didn't have the right mindset to trade, but I ignored my better judgement and allowed FOMO to blind me. That fear of missing out, of maybe missing a fifty or sixty point runner. Of being able to add to a winner and bolster my week. To make up for last weeks losses. I sat and smiled. Why? Well, to realise this and admit it to myself, was huge. A genuinely big step in the right direction towards cultivating the right mindset not just for trading, but for a better life. To take responsibility for my actions and to acknowledge that everything happened this morning because 'I' was at fault, is to me, hard evidence of my changing and of my growth both as a trader and as a person. I wrote in my trading diary the following -
'I almost bought DAX with a small stop at it's high but acknowledged it was a revenge trade, and if it was a winner then I would be rewarded for bad trading and would reinforce that the odd revenge trade is okay. I closed the broker. I am proud of this as it is progress.'
I don't want to reinforce bad habits and bad actions. I want to cut them out of my trading and out of my psyche. I want to grow as both a trader and a person, and to do that I have to take responsibility for myself, and my actions. So as I write this now I could've very easily taken that DAX trade and it would've eradicated all of this mornings losses and returned a little profit, so no harm done, right? But what harm would it have done in the future to both my account and to me? Instead I chose to 'consciously' sit in my emotional pain, to feel it. To embrace it and accept it, because it is in this pain that I know will find strength and I will grow. I will be a better trader tomorrow because of it. It will teach me far more about myself to live with it, and work through it, then if I had succumbed to it and tried to deny it by neutralising it and taking an undisciplined emotional trade.
I am in the process of changing my beliefs about myself and my life. I strongly believe that this can be done if the correct process is applied and in changing your beliefs, you will change your material reality. This morning and this post are proof of that and also that the process I am following, is working. Now I'm not saying that I am all happy clappy and I only see the good in everything, far from it. I am annoyed about this morning and frustrated and I am not denying those feelings, but I am acknowledging them and processing them for what they are. Information. They are a feed back loop which shows me how out of alignment my beliefs are with my desires. The important thing to acknowledge about feelings is that they do not define who you are as a person. They are not you. They are arbitrary and as such can be changed and so they are not in control. You are. You can choose how they affect you. The old me would've not necessarily revenge traded in the traditional sense of upping my stake and jumping back in, but I definitely would've committed the cardinal sin and probably traded at work on my mobile. I would've tried to catch a runner in either the NASDAQ or the DOW as they move quickly and as such 30 points can be recovered in a matter of seconds. I would've shut the laptop down, gone to the supermarket and for sure comfort ate a load of crap. Cheesecakes, chocolate. Pastries. I would've then taken my anger to work with me and so the slightest little issue would've been blown out of all proportion and I would've had a shit day. I would've let it affect me all day and I would've no doubt eaten even more crap when I got home tonight. I would've said 'f**k today and f**k trading tomorrow.'
But I didn't. Instead I took inspired action and I sat and wrote this blog post (which actually surprised me!). I didn't eat any crap and stayed within my calories (I am cutting at the moment as I want to be in shape for something special happening this year). I had a great and actually quite funny and enjoyable day at work. I came home tonight and I was happy and looking forward to trading again tomorrow morning. All of this I genuinely put down to the fact that I am changing my beliefs and with this, changing myself as a person and changing my life. It's all about perspective. Everything happens for a reason and we let things affect us because the reason is not always clear. We lack the perspective to see it that specific moment in time. That's all. I sometimes doubted that the process was even working and wondered if I was wasting my time. But not now because I don't need to. I know it's working.
This post itself is proof of that.
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