Spend Less Time Trading & More Time Living

Anyone who spends more than a few weeks trading the market, knows that it can be very addictive. Whether you’re a loser or a winner, the great Wall St. ‘casino’ will lure you in, and keep you in.

For those of us who trade Forex, it’s even worse because the market runs 24/7, much like a casino with no clocks on the walls and no windows, it just keeps going and going, providing a never-ending stream of temptation.

Even the most intelligent people are susceptible to the markets great lure; the constant flashing of prices, the constant short-term moves on five minute charts and the constant rush of adrenalin that trading provides can be nearly impossible to ignore.

The key to conquering the addiction of trading, is to avoid placing a trade when there’s no reason to do so, and also to avoid fiddling with the trades you do take. Both entering a trade that deviates from your trading strategy, and watching an open trade just because you’re in it, is FINANCIAL SUICIDE. You know you do both of these things all the time, so if you care about yourself, your future and anybody else close to you, then LISTEN UP COWBOY.

I won’t fill this lesson with points about trading addiction and gambling, instead I will provide ways to avoid becoming addicted and to help you break a trading addiction / obsession that is likely destroying your trading account right now…

GET A FREAKING LIFE…

Sounds harsh I know, but if you’ve read any of my other trading articles, you know I’m a straight shooter and I don’t sugar-coat anything. For the sake of your well-being, your family’s well-being and your finances, you need to simply GET A LIFE.

What I mean by that is, STOP getting your ‘kicks’ from staring at the flashing price quotes on your trading platform all day and night. Not only is this simply a waste of time, it’s also causing you to trade improperly, develop poor trading habits, and lose money.

Accept that you have no control over the market, and let it do its thing. You only have control over yourself as you trade, and the best way you can help your chances of trading success is by removing yourself from your trading platform most of the time.

You need to develop a trading routine and not deviate from it. Check the markets each day a couple times, especially at the end of the trading day, run through your trading plan / checklist and if no trade is clearly present, then walk away until your next scheduled market analysis time. Don’t sit there for hours trying to ‘force’ a trade setup out of the market! This is insanity, addiction, and it’s how you WILL blow out your trading account!

You need to have hobbies and interests outside of trading, have an active social life. These things will help you as a trader because they will divert your attention away from the charts and the markets, which is only going to lessen your chances of becoming a trading addict and blowing out your trading account. Remember, you don’t need to trade high frequency to make a lot of money in the market.

Do SOMETHING. Anything.

If you’re lazy, bored or whatever, just do something, ANYTHING, heck, you can even invent something to do. Watch 5 movies in a row, go and play lawn bowls, play golf for the first time, kick a soccer ball with the kid, go shopping for 2 hours, and buy a $1 item.

Your goal should be to distract yourself from the markets, for this is really the best ‘trade management’ technique. Start viewing time away from your trading screens as a very valuable part of your overall trading routine and trading plan. It doesn’t matter what you do, just devise a way to keep yourself away from your trading platform so that you don’t over-trade or screw up good trades you may have entered from being too involved.

Don’t fiddle with your trades, especially in public

STOP fiddling with your trades, especially when you’re away from your computer. Don’t look at them when you’re at work or out doing something in public. Don’t get the mobile trading addiction where you wake up at night to look at your trades on your phone or get stuck checking them no matter what you’re doing or want time of day it is. Get real and take a look at yourself and what you’re doing, it obviously isn’t helping you make money!

To the average outside spectator, someone checking their phone all the time, whether they’re out at a restaurant, at work or laying at home in bed, would see like a full-fledged gambling addict. Just because you’re trading the markets doesn’t mean you don’t have a gambling addiction, it’s basically exactly the same as a gambling addiction if you’re fiddling with your trades all the time. So, if you want to make money, you need to stop.

The same goes for fiddling with your trades once they are live; don’t do it! Find other things to do, other ways to get your entertainment. Again, it’s OK to check on your trades once or twice a day, but sitting there for hours staring at them is only going to cause you to make a stupid trading mistake that will result in lost money and lost time.

‘Trade-aholic’ is a real condition

Have you seen those idiots who play poker machines all day? If you trade in and out of the market frequently, you may as well join them because you’re basically doing the same thing. Don’t become one, don’t put yourself above gamblers just because you’re trading with the WALL st top dogs now, don’t kid yourself.

Don’t just sit around reading articles and saying ‘hey that’s me’ … you need to actually take action here.
Don’t delay another day, get the ship back on track and don’t look back, make the change, be one of the smart ones, don’t be a statistic, don’t be sucker, you owe it to yourself!

The first thing you need to do if you recognize any of the above behaviour is to simply TAKE A BREAK and write down a list of everything you’re going to change…write a diary to yourself daily.

Nothing in my courses, and nothing I teach you about trading strategies will save you here, this is all on you, you’re in control and this is the one battle you can win 100%, you know the hand before its played, you know the outcome, so if you can see the future, why not do something with that knowledge? Act now, and avoid being one of the statistics.