One of the biggest psychological issues for pre-race traders is letting their trades go in-play, along with chasing losses it's the fastest way to the poor house.
I have lost track of the number of post I have read where people are seriously struggling with letting trades go in-play and I'm sure there are potentially thousands of newbie traders who have stopped trading entirely because of it.
From a psychological point of view a trader does not want to lose and will take absorbent risks to avoid a relatively small loss, knowing full well that going in play will lead to a much larger loss.
When faced with a small loss undisciplined traders will continue to go in-play time after time knowing full well that the odds are against them.
One of the reasons that traders continue going down this destructive path is because there is no physical discomfort felt from their actions, the pain is simply psychological.
There is a simple way to use this to our advantage, I like to call it the "liquorice trick".
As a kid I hated the taste of black liquorice lollies with a passion and I still do, I wont eat it under any circumstances. If you offered me $100 to eat a bag of it I would refuse.
Now there is something very powerful going on here, I will do almost anything to avoid eating liquorice lollies.
About 3 months ago I placed a glass jar of liquorice lollies in a prominent place on my desk, if I don't green-up pre-play before 0:00:00 I force myself to eat a piece.
During the first week I let my trades go in-play twice and forced myself to eat a piece as a punishment on each occasion. I learnt pretty quickly that eating liquorice lollies is physically uncomfortable for me and something I don't want to do under any circumstances.
Since those first week slip-ups I have not let any trades go in play, regardless of the loss placed in front of me. It didn't take me long to learn that I will do anything to avoid eating liquorice lollies.
Give it a try, the results may surprise you, a simple DIY below:
1. Find a food that you won't eat under any circumstances because you hate the taste.
2. Place it in a prominent spot on your desk, where you can see it while trading.
3. If you let a trade go in play, force yourself to eat it.
4. Repeat step 3.
And a list of foods for those struggling to find something they hate the taste of:
- Hot raw chillies
- Raw onion
- Raw lemon
- Olives
- Anchovies
- Blue cheese
- Black pudding
How to stop going in-play with the liquorice trick
Great idea. At the end of the day its all about finding the right way to unlearn your bad habits. If you want to take it to more extreme levels there is a piece of technology for that.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -help.html
fortunatly not a problem i have (but i can feel the urge occassionally).
what i dont understand is why can you force yourself to eat something that you find unpleasant if you dont green up at 00:00:00, but cant force yourself to greenup?
you had to "train" yourself to do something you find unpleasant in order to stop yourself doing something else unpleasant.
why could you not (and others) just greenup (do the unpleasant thing) at the off or sometime before?
what i dont understand is why can you force yourself to eat something that you find unpleasant if you dont green up at 00:00:00, but cant force yourself to greenup?
you had to "train" yourself to do something you find unpleasant in order to stop yourself doing something else unpleasant.
why could you not (and others) just greenup (do the unpleasant thing) at the off or sometime before?
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GoldenEggGoose
- Posts: 13
- Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2015 8:32 am
I think it's mostly because not greening-up is not physically painful, plus we get caught up in the heat of the moment. Accepting you punishment after the fact isn't actually that difficult.to75ne wrote:fortunatly not a problem i have (but i can feel the urge occassionally).
what i dont understand is why can you force yourself to eat something that you find unpleasant if you dont green up at 00:00:00, but cant force yourself to greenup?
you had to "train" yourself to do something you find unpleasant in order to stop yourself doing something else unpleasant.
why could you not (and others) just greenup (do the unpleasant thing) at the off or sometime before?
Think a of child riding bike, you can tell them not to go down that steep hill 100 times, but until they ride down the hill and fall off it's unlikely they will stop doing it.
GoldenEggGoose wrote:I think it's mostly because not greening-up is not physically painful, plus we get caught up in the heat of the moment. Accepting you punishment after the fact isn't actually that difficult.to75ne wrote:fortunatly not a problem i have (but i can feel the urge occassionally).
what i dont understand is why can you force yourself to eat something that you find unpleasant if you dont green up at 00:00:00, but cant force yourself to greenup?
you had to "train" yourself to do something you find unpleasant in order to stop yourself doing something else unpleasant.
why could you not (and others) just greenup (do the unpleasant thing) at the off or sometime before?
Think a of child riding bike, you can tell them not to go down that steep hill 100 times, but until they ride down the hill and fall off it's unlikely they will stop doing it.
i am glad you have found a method to overcome your problem but its an emotional problem.
betangel has several "tools" that take out any emotion from decisions such as when to green up.
have you not considered automation rules and/or excel to remove yourself from the problem? (no more liquorice).
this is exactly my stance, plus, i also run a little sentinel app that monitors my BF account balance and transfers funds to the AUS wallet when a given target (or potential loss) figure is breached in any session. this totally removes me from any emotional discharge and I don't even think *sh!t, what if i'd let it run, would have doubled my profit* - there's always tomorrow and being in the game still to enjoy itto75ne wrote: betangel has several "tools" that take out any emotion from decisions such as when to green up.
have you not considered automation rules and/or excel to remove yourself from the problem? (no more liquorice).
