Self Honesty

My stubborness and refusal to be honest and admit to a trading loss when it was small . cost me some big and expensive lessons. Perhaps I am not alone. If you are reading this and feel you were like me before , own up and share your thoughts !

As human we always tend not to admit to our own mistakes immediately. This is defensive behaviour by nature. As trader , this self deception is also self destruction to our own profession. The simple fact of the matter is that cutting losses and letting profits run is a fundamental truth about the stock markets. This seems to be an unwritten rule. However , how many of us are really cutting losses when we realise we were wrong ? There is always excuses and special case or exception we think we can give as a reason to hang on to a losing trade. Admitting we are wrong or admiting to a failure is hard to swallow. We must end this self deception and be honest about what we do if we were to succeed in this game. Trading is a self journey and also a self challenge. Our nearest opponent is we ourselves.

I had given up my favourite sport golfing for some time. In life we need to sacrifice something for something else. I need to improve my trading performance and spent time researching trading psychology , and blogging of course. In golfing , the achievement of each score after the game is really a self challenge. It is not a comparison of that score against your team players. That is my view. The challenge is to do better the next game , with reference to my previous score. Who cares what my team players scores are.

Conclusion - trading is like golfing , it is a self challenge … be honest !