To try and just take a quick silly little trade just to record a positive week, even if it was only by one point, but, I resisted...sort of.
I have to admit I was watching the market on my mobile yesterday at work and placed a couple of orders, but then saw sense and deleted them. One of them would've made me 20+ points, but I wouldn't have learnt anything from it. In fact, it would've been detrimental to my learning as it would've reinforced a bad habit.
So in the end I took my losing week and accepted it because it is in this acceptance that growth can happen. The growth I speak of is not obviously in my account, but in my mindset and my emotional control. To book a losing week is never a nice feeling, but if you're a trader, you have to acknowledge and accept that it is and always will be a part of trading life, this is how you develop and grow as a trader, alongside your account.
A losing week makes you look a little harder when you review your trades and the missed opportunities which again, promotes growth. It helps to improve your awareness both of the markets and of self. If you just keep booking win after win, the complacency can become blinding to your faults, and these are what you should be working on improving week after week are they not? It helps you to reflect not just on your trading, but on you . It helps build the foundation for resilience in the face of adversity. Sure, minus 1 points is not exactly a catastrophe, but it is a step back away from my desired future. It's another week I have to work at a job I don't like. But that's all it is and if I have been in that job for 20 years (that thought makes me genuinely want to cry) then what's another week?
That last sentence proves to me that I have grown. It proves that I have trimmed away the weeds of impatience and frustration and so now the seeds of composure and acceptance can begin to grow. It has helped me to feel gratitude for what I have, rather than an envy for that which I don't. This gratitude has lead to me feeling more contentment which in turn makes you feel calm. All of these feelings serve to make me a better trader. They help to enforce the knowledge that I cannot control that which is outside of myself, only that which is within. My actions and reactions. My thoughts. My feelings. My emotions.
In my opinion, it is inside is where you will find the most rewarding growth, far more rewarding than a big account, and if you're growing inside, then eventually that growth will spill outside, and it will leak into other areas of your life and you will find suddenly that your account balance will have grown without you even really noticing.
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