A strange thing happened to me when I started writing this. The first post I wrote was an admission of a mistake I had made on Sasol. People seemed to dig that post, so I kept writing about things I’d done wrong because people could identify with them. Times were tough and I felt that I should share the naked truth of trading, and that is still the point. To cut an extremely long and complicated story short, I got myself into a negative feedback loop and soon this started to affect my trading results. The more I wrote about things that went wrong, the more things went wrong.
It took a series of conversations and a few bottles of wine over a weekend with a friend of mine to realise that my attitude towards trading had changed. I had reached a point where I felt trepidation each time I placed a trade. These well-oiled conversations reminded me that trading is actually just thinking opportunistically and being present in each moment. He had a certain energy that I had lost and I wanted it back.
It feels like I was so stuck under a rock of doubt and planning for worst case scenarios that I had lost my positive winning attitude. A lot of people, (but I speak only for myself here), struggle to believe that they are worth the rewards they receive. So they self-sabotage. Realizing that I had been doing this allows me to identify it and ultimately change it.
So it is time for a new outlook, and writing about some winners. I’ve seen how the formula works now and I am going to put it to good use. What you think about, you bring about. I am going look out for positives, things that I do right, and write about those. With a bit of luck I could find myself in a positive feedback loop and my trading could flourish.
Mountain to climb, right? Not really. I’ve started trading intraday again, which is something that I had done less of since being back in Jozi. Now that I think about it, the less often I did it the worse I did it, and it all turned to brown stuff. So I’ve started small, just messing around and not over doing it. This market has been insanely volatile and if I am sharp there is some good money to be made. So I’m just feeling my way through it now and building up my confidence from scratch again.
The positive feedback loop has already started because the more small winners I can tie together without a small loser, the more my confidence grows back. It feels good! So here is to happy with a positive winning attitude! Because the first step to winning at something is believing you will. Trading is not all just losing and hard times. The reason why trading is the coolest thing in the world to do, is because sometimes it can be an effortless and fun thing to do!
So happy trading!
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