Courses, horses - or the mind?

10 de mar. de 2018

If you’re reading this looking just for the best course to attend, you may be disappointed. I go deeper than the simple issue of 'which courses' or 'what course is best'. The sharing of my personal experience may be of value to new traders but also for more seasoned traders.

INTRODUCTION

I’m sharing a summary of my experiences over the last 4 years, so that others can see something more about ‘courses’ – and what courses can never give you.

I am nobody known or big in the trading world. I do not offer advice in this or any other post. I do not train anybody. I do not seek anybody's money for any service. I do not require recognition. Take all of what’s written here as 'what I've learned' and cautiously apply the parts of it that you find of any value. Where I use words like ‘you’ and ‘yours’, this is my self-talk as if I’m advising myself all over again. I do this all the time. You're not mad if you're doing self-talk. It is an important thing to do.

I started off with binary options and lost a fair amount of money. I watched numerous videos on YouTube about how to trade these, with numerous so-called successful strategies. In my searches I came across Spreadbetting, and did the same. More money lost. I then signed up with various trainers and spent more money there. More losses. I'm to blame I was led to understand because I didn't follow the rules. That's true to some extent - but something fundamental was missing. Why could I not follow the rules of some strategy invented by others? It's about why this post is in the Trading Psychology section of Tradingview.

I followed various gurus on websites, paid more money and still no success. Most of these gurus had state of the art audio-visual equipment and studios. They usually appeared with large microphones, conspicuous and 'in the face'. Is that really necessary? Some will say it’s all about better sound quality.
Then I got into ‘trading diaries’ and other things people out there said I should do. Still major problems.

So, what was missing? To put it in a nutshell the problem was grappling with my personal psychology. This is about the way I work - how my mind functions in relation to risk, which would be different to everybody else. Psychologists may be able to tell you a bit about how minds in general work. They cannot tell you exactly how ‘your mind’ works.

GURUS?
Most of the gurus I came across would mention psychology several times but never get to the heart of it. Naturally they're not psychotherapists, so they can't tell me how to sort myself out. Most trainers focused on 'discipline' which is fine, but they couldn't tell me how to become disciplined. What? - am I just supposed to pull myself together and follow a script? Some would say 'yes'. But this is not how the human being operates. If everybody could just pull themselves together and follow a trading plan and a set of rules, then everybody would be rich. Come on - we all know that's silly.
... truncated.

This post became so long, that it cannot fit on Tradingview. It is accessible here where I go on to explore:

GURUS?

RECOGNITION

METHODOLOGY AND STRATEGY

MIND AND PSYCHOLOGY

PATTERN REWRITING

IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME

I do apologise, and hope Tradingview allows this post to remain.