Self doubt creeping in

Trading is often about how to take the appropriate risk without exposing yourself to very human flaws.
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abgespaced
Posts: 176
Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2020 2:25 am
Location: Australia

I've been staring at markets for nearly a year now.

Had some really good success, but not enough to believe that I'm on the right track.

Randomly, I had some issues with my car, and it hit me like a truck that I might need to spend money on it that i otherwise have in reserve for trading.

Then the snowball of anxiety that comes with worrying if I've wasted the last year of my life if I am still struggling with money at this point.

It's almost like, every time i think i'm out of the woods and about to make some serious money, some other shite comes along to put it all in doubt.
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johnsheppard
Posts: 283
Joined: Mon Feb 04, 2019 6:00 am
Location: Cairns Australia

Treat it like a business. It's less anxiety producing.

E.g. A Doctor makes a decision to do 10 years of learning. They need to set aside 10 years of capital to live while they do that training.

The troubles with trading is that everyone starts from ignorance and consequently underestimates the reality of the situation. There is no clear answer to how long it takes. The figure I see most people throw around is 10,000 hours.

Nothing is ever wasted tho. Mistakes are important things in the path to learning :)

Consider opening up a hamburger joint without enough capital....think about what happens....

Also, the 'serious money' part of what you say there, I think is a bit of a concern.... Hamburger joints never make serious money :)
rik
Posts: 1583
Joined: Sat Jan 25, 2014 5:16 am
Location: London

try to be as rational as possible, most times long term results dont lie

are there strategies/markets that are clearly working for you?
are you improving? your results this year better than last year?
overall profit over a year or longer sufficient? if not can you pin down good reasons for it
t0pd0g
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Dec 07, 2020 4:35 pm

When you experience these types of feelings, remember why you started and why you invested in the companies you did.

Often, you only need to give your investments time before they come to fruition. You may have to wait months for this to happen if you invested at the top.

Whatever you do, avoid selling for a loss, unless you absolutely need the money.
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Derek27
Posts: 23472
Joined: Wed Aug 30, 2017 11:44 am
Location: UK

abgespaced wrote:
Mon Nov 16, 2020 5:58 am
I've been staring at markets for nearly a year now.

Had some really good success, but not enough to believe that I'm on the right track.

Randomly, I had some issues with my car, and it hit me like a truck that I might need to spend money on it that i otherwise have in reserve for trading.

Then the snowball of anxiety that comes with worrying if I've wasted the last year of my life if I am still struggling with money at this point.

It's almost like, every time i think i'm out of the woods and about to make some serious money, some other shite comes along to put it all in doubt.
Look on the positive side. You're in difficulty not because you're not trading well but problems outside of trading that's hopefully a one-off. If you have to take a chunk of your capital out, just focus on rebuilding and making money out of what you got rather than "serious* money, which will hopefully come later. Good luck.
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