Learning to love to take a loss
I think the hardest part of trading every day and becoming profitable was when I finally, finally learned to love to take a loss. It took a long time to change my thinking about trading and to bang it into my brain to cut losing trades quicker and to let winners go longer. Sounds simple, I know. Emotions ruled my trading at first. I kept thinking that I could find the perfect strategy and not have to worry about taking too many losing trades. I searched and searched. I came across this quote that I keep in front of me while I trade every day: “Your losing trades do not diminish you as a person. You are not your losing trades. You are also not winning your trades. They are simply by-products of the business that you are in.” I had to take the emotional attachment out of my trading. I kept holding onto a losing trade thinking that it could, should, might, hopefully turn around and go in my direction. Well, at least half the time that does not happen, so I would end up losing more. I learned to close losing trades as soon as I saw that it was a loser, whether that be a couple pips loss, 20 pips loss, whatever. Move on to finding another trade. Then likewise, hold on to winners longer. I do like to take half profit when a trade reaches a first target or +50 pips. Then let the remainder run longer and move the stop loss up to protect profits. Once I learned to LOVE to take a loss and move on to another trade, I found that my weekly gains started to compound so much faster. Trading is such a head game. By predefining and cutting my losses short quicker, I am making myself available to learn the best possible way to let my profits grow!! If you can change what losing trades mean to you and realize that getting out of a losing trade as soon as you define it as such, you will be able to release yourself from the stress that those losing trades probably cause you now. Less stress, less fear of loss, more time to win! Thats the name of the game.