How to deal with Performance Anxiety?

[Brovashift]

Ye I have been wondering if it could be fatigue, as I don't do anything else at the moment. I've been of the mindset that 'I just need to crack this and then I'll have plenty of time for "other things" then'. Not a healthy attitued, and one thats possibly pulling me under.

I did go for a walk in the forest a few weeks ago, where I usually go to clear my head, but I went with the expectation that it would solve all my problems and could hear myself saying, after a couple of hundred meters "right c'mon, do your thing... epiphany please" lol, trying to force something to happen. It didn't happen, helped for about a day before reverting back. Maybe a month might do it, doing some woodwork. I'll have to find a project.

Stoicism sounds like a good attitude for all areas of life, not just trading, although the last bit about if all else fails you've always got the option of turning your wrists over.... a bit extreme isn't it It's only money, Im not quite ready to do myself in over it
I've also been reading about Biofeedback today, and Hemoencephalography, which I believe is a way of stimulating blood flow to the prefrontal cortex to activate "the zone" peak performance. Not sure about stimulation, more like good bedtime reading lol

And I hear what you're saying LeTiss. I read a long time ago about finding your natural time zone within a market, and what suits one wont necessarily suit another. I started looking at Tennis markets at the start of this year and knew pretty much straight away that it suited my style more so than horse racing markets, but after investing so much time and effort into racing markets, and being someone who doesn't like to fail at anything, I pressed on with these things that I 'just had to try' in pre-off/in-play markets, before allowing myself to focus on the thing I really wanted to focus on. Bit foolish really, but if I hadn't have tried them they probably would've caused me distraction in the tennis markets instead. I don't mind the racing markets but if Im honest with myself I think my strengths lie elsewhere. All part of the jouney I guess.

I think you might have hit the nail on the head there with "make money to boost confidence". My first 6months of financials were also flat (tiny profit) and it wasn't until I heard a guy on YouTube (Anthony Crudele) talk about the start of his career being flat until someone said to him to think/look longer term, that he started to make money. I applied this approach, trading in 60min time frame which worked for me also and boosted my confidence to the point of having some level of competancy and able to go off and find my own approach to trading. I think thats what I need to do here, take some time out and go right back to the start and make some small consistent wins to boost my confidence, and do the stake increase journey all over again. Should go quicker second time around I'd hope.

[Kai]

Stoicism sounds like a good attitude for all areas of life, not just trading, although the last bit about if all else fails you've always got the option of turning your wrists over.... a bit extreme isn't it It's only money, Im not quite ready to do myself in over it

No worries, not going to preach about Stoicism on this forum like they preached about it on the forums of ancient Rome or Athens, but a few key takeaways do come to mind that anyone can borrow, particularly for trading. Generally it's hard not to agree with most of it, except on topics like passion and moderation, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius probably wouldn't last a week in our world, today we have far too many sources of instant pleasure and entertainment that is all readily available with barely any effort or cost.

I can never do this topic justice with a brief post, but I can suggest these takeaways...

1. Control what you can. You can't control the market or the past that is likely riddled with mistakes and regret, but you can control how you react to it all. Keeping your emotions in check, indifference whether you've won or lost big, all tailor-made for traders. Wallowing in self-pity is both unproductive and harmful because adversity can ultimately make you better, stronger and wiser.



2. Practicing negative visualization has its perks. Markets are uncertain so imagining potential losses can help you accept them before they even happen. It also allows you to appreciate what you already have, meaning you can rise above both greed and fear, the two main driving factors behind the market. This alone can be huge for many that struggle with loss aversion etc. Like they say, we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

[Kai]

There's also one off-topic takeaway, if I may indulge for a moment... one of my favorites actually, it is extremely helpful when dealing with some people both online and in real life.

Marcus Aurelius : "Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. Therefore I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. We were born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition.”

Or you can just use the short version like I do : "Today I shall encounter idiots... and that's okay."

[Brovashift]

Stoicism sounds like a good attitude for all areas of life, not just trading, although the last bit about if all else fails you've always got the option of turning your wrists over.... a bit extreme isn't it It's only money, Im not quite ready to do myself in over it

No worries, not going to preach about Stoicism on this forum like they preached about it on the forums of ancient Rome or Athens, but a few key takeaways do come to mind that anyone can borrow, particularly for trading. Generally it's hard not to agree with most of it, except on topics like passion and moderation, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius probably wouldn't last a week in our world, today we have far too many sources of instant pleasure and entertainment that is all readily available with barely any effort or cost.

I can never do this topic justice with a brief post, but I can suggest these takeaways...

1. Control what you can. You can't control the market or the past that is likely riddled with mistakes and regret, but you can control how you react to it all. Keeping your emotions in check, indifference whether you've won or lost big, all tailor-made for traders. Wallowing in self-pity is both unproductive and harmful because adversity can ultimately make you better, stronger and wiser.



2. Practicing negative visualization has its perks. Markets are uncertain so imagining potential losses can help you accept them before they even happen. It also allows you to appreciate what you already have, meaning you can rise above both greed and fear, the two main driving factors behind the market. This alone can be huge for many that struggle with loss aversion etc. Like they say, we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

I didn't mean to come across as flippant with that last comment lol, if thats how it was read. I only looked at a couple of YouTube videos on Stoicism that popped up on page 1 search results. But it made me laugh when it said Marcus Aurelius suggested, if all else fails, there is always suicide lol. Although I do think he was referring to in the event 'quality of life' (healthwise) deteriorates, and to a point, he's not wrong.

I was just reading up on loss aversion and risk aversion, and like in my example above with my difference in mindset with BlackJack and trading, one is clearly loss aversion and at the other end (trading) is greed. How can I transcend these two extremes?
Im guessing any part of Stoicism you want to implement will require a brain rewireing like any other behavioural change someone wishes to make. So repetativness + time?

I started looking at Zen Minimalism this year after seeing it mentioned on here and found that to be quite benefical to cutting out/limiting potential outside distractions/desires. Practiced by Buddhist's I believe, thats why they shave their hair off, so the dont have to maintain it by cutting and styling it, and can focus on more important stuff. Luckily for me I dont have enough hair to be able to style it anyway lol

Practicing 'negative' visualization.... Thats a new one. I've heard of positive visualisations, used that successfully once in my life when I was about 17 trying to win over a girl who was 6 years older than me. And it worked. She completely screwed my head over for about 5 years after though, maybe I should have done some negative visualisations then Too young and nieve.

[Jukebox]

As an aside I think of those guys who have to engrave the winner's name with great skill and neatness by hand on an important trophy the moment the final shot or whistle happens with live cameras over their shoulders thinking things like did they say "Marina Natravilova?"

[Brovashift]

Performance related anxiety is something I think most if not all traders experience at varying times over our trading career. In fact I’m surprised this topic isn’t as regular as the martingale topic.

Some of the elite traders probably don’t suffer as much, if at all but that’s probably because they’re at a comfortable place with the biases that make up the foundation of this particular issue (imo).

Loss aversion (already mentioned).
Recency bias
Conformation bias

All three of those are probably having some impact in the relationship between your performance & anxiety. I’d suggest spending some time getting to know how these may be impacting you & how having a better understanding of them can actually have a positive impact on your performance anxiety.

Well done for speaking out, most be either too proud or too ashamed.

Thanks for these Jamesg, I think I definitely need to address 'loss aversion' somehow, and vaguely remember something about recency bias when studying behavioral finance years ago, but not come across it since, until now. Will look deeper.

Tbh making a post like this was not something I wanted to do, nobody wants to publicly admit failure, but as this has been going on for a couple of months now and everything I am trying is not working I've had to admit there is a problem. Like an AA meeting; "Hi, my name is Rob and I have a performance anxiety problem." lol

I didn't even know it was performance anxiety until a day before making this post, after rereading a section in The Daily Trading Coach book on the subject I thought, 'thats it, thats exactly whats going on'. I didn't associate it to anxiety because I thought of anxiety as; worry, and panic attacks. I don't feel those is great depth when trading, but I suppose self doubt is/can cause a type of subconscious worry before performing the next trade, and something that can go un-noticed.
I've known about performance anxiety for a long time but having never experienced it I didn't notice the signs and so have continued to dig a deeper and deeper hole to the point I've hit a type of trading paralysis, unable to function. When I get over this at least, if there is a next time, I hopefully wont spend months spiralling out of control and will nip things in the bud after a day or two.

I actually feel apprehensive about the prospect of starting from the beginnning again, going back to basics... what if I still can't get back to where I was (rhetorical question). What this post has done, by admitting I have a problem in a public domain such as this, is I've admitted it to myself and have to now hold myself accountable, which feels quite liberating, like I've finally hit the bottom of the spiral, and now just got to find a way back up.

[mcgoo]

Interesting topic.There was a chap who lived opposite a friend of mine when we were about 15... Tony.. aged about 20. Tony had the beautiful women, the best surf gear and clothes(you know..jammy bastard), nice cars etc . We lived in a lower class neighbourhood and after watching him be like this for years up to that point, we finally asked him..how the hell do you do it mate.. he said "I'll give you some advice: Things come to those who don't care" I don't know if he realised how deep that was but I do think he knew he wasn't talking about indifference. I never forgot it and it helps me to this day. I've come to know this as Mushin( You can define mushin as “the mind without mind” – a state when your brain is not preoccupied with anything else than the specific activity you are performing at a certain moment. Mushin is achieved when a person's mind is free from thoughts such as fear, anger, or every other emotion in everyday life.
) in the martial arts and have felt it from time to time when training on the mats. I believe its what athletes ( or Mark Douglas' book) call being in the zone. It comes with training the process and then letting the training take over. It's joyful and peaceful in the midst of chaos of being attacked with full force. Trading draws many parallels to this in my thinking. I appreciate that trading for a living adds huge pressure and I'm lucky I don't have to do that but hopefully once the mental state is reached the context doesn't matter. I am aware of my loss aversion tendency so this observation state of Mushin is the goal for me tooHope things improve Brovashift. Good luck.

[Brovashift]

I just started re-reading Mark Douglas's Trading in the Zone today lol, think it'll be more relevant second time round.

Actually had an ok day today trying out the ancient art of not giving a fuck (stoicism), one losing trade out of 8, found some of my mojo again.
Im seeing the US open through to the final on Sunday and then gona down tools for a while. Do some reading to see if I can work on whatever's going on up stairs in my head.

I'll come back a new man

[arbitrage16]

You need a breathwork practice. Be consistent. it will change your life.

[Trader Pat]

I just started re-reading Mark Douglas's Trading in the Zone today lol, think it'll be more relevant second time round.

Actually had an ok day today trying out the ancient art of not giving a fuck (stoicism), one losing trade out of 8, found some of my mojo again.
Im seeing the US open through to the final on Sunday and then gona down tools for a while. Do some reading to see if I can work on whatever's going on up stairs in my head.

I'll come back a new man

If you suffer from loss aversion or 'performance anxiety' then reading a book isn't going to help you. You need to spend more time in the markets not less. Trade as much as you can on small stakes, and for real money not in practice mode. You need to have some skin in the game even if it's only a very small amount.

Reading books and practicing mindfulness isn't going to help you understand the market which is your aim, only spending as much time in those markets as possible and trying to absorb what you see is going to do that.

[arbitrage16]

I just started re-reading Mark Douglas's Trading in the Zone today lol, think it'll be more relevant second time round.

Actually had an ok day today trying out the ancient art of not giving a fuck (stoicism), one losing trade out of 8, found some of my mojo again.
Im seeing the US open through to the final on Sunday and then gona down tools for a while. Do some reading to see if I can work on whatever's going on up stairs in my head.

I'll come back a new man

If you suffer from loss aversion or 'performance anxiety' then reading a book isn't going to help you. You need to spend more time in the markets not less. Trade as much as you can on small stakes, and for real money not in practice mode. You need to have some skin in the game even if it's only a very small amount.

Reading books and practicing mindfulness isn't going to help you understand the market which is your aim, only spending as much time in those markets as possible and trying to absorb what you see is going to do that.

You have to do both IMO. Learn more about how you respond to stressors - books, youtube etc - then practice applying that stuff in the markets.

Just trying exposure therapy alone is going to put you in a bad spot if you don't know some of the theory behind what is happening to you and why. Seems like this has already happened to OP.

[Trader Pat]

You have to do both IMO. Learn more about how you respond to stressors - books, youtube etc - then practice applying that stuff in the markets.

Just trying exposure therapy alone is going to put you in a bad spot if you don't know some of the theory behind what is happening to you and why. Seems like this has already happened to OP.

It's going to be different for everyone of course but the danger is not being able to see the wood for the trees. I see lots of people getting bogged down in the theory of trading by reading books and spending hours on Youtube etc.. and not spending enough time in the markets. If you can do both then fine but you don't want to drive yourself around the bend by an overload of information and then having to deal with the stresses of actually trading on top of that.

I fell into most of the traps that people can fall into before I became profitable, chasing losses; going in play; lack of focus etc... but the more time I spent in the markets the more I understood how they worked and that in turn meant I was less likely to do anything stupid. I think I might have spent a little bit of time wondering why I was doing these things but ultimately looking back I've put it down to not understanding how the markets work.

It also depends on whether or not the OP is losing money. If you're blowing banks and going in play etc then maybe some time out is a good thing but if you're not doing any of that then you should be spending the majority of your time doing rather than theorising.

[Kai]

Self-reflection should not be confused with "research" like reading books or watching videos etc.

It can be a vital tool for improvement and learning, one should really make some time for it, even if it can get painful at times.

In other words it's an opportunity to get some fresh neutral perspective into your actions and emotions, you get a chance to press the pause button amidst the chaos, to try and untangle and sort through your observations and experiences, for the sole purpose of understanding them and extracting key lessons. Lessons that you can already try applying tomorrow in your next trading session.

[Trader Pat]

Self-reflection should not be confused with "research" like reading books or watching videos etc.

Thats fair, we all need to self-reflect at times.

My point was more about people spending more time reading about and watching videos on trading than actually trading. And I'd include books and videos on mindfulness and self reflection in that!

I read Trading in the Zone and got absolutely nothing out of it. Its the same for me with books or vids on mindfulness, self reflection, meditation etc... A lot of it is just stating the obvious and a lot of it is just BS. None of these ideas are earth shattering.

Take meditation for example. You sit in a dark room, no distractions, or sounds, and concentrate on the sound of your breathing for fifteen minutes, that's meditating. You don't need a book to tell you how to do that.

[Kai]

Football is maybe a good analogy here, because teams live and die by their performance, much like traders.

Top teams have many analysis sessions and employ several different analysts whose sole job is to objectively reflect on their recent performances and to extract vital information that will help future performances, it's a simple enough concept. Some coaches do it after a match while others do it when all the matchday emotions have settled down.

The players themselves train almost daily, meaning they spend a lot of time in "practice mode", to try and stay sharp and fit and to help combat performance anxiety, among other things. Their focus has to be on their next performance, their next match, it is the ONLY way to go on long unbeaten runs, they can't obsess about league tables or past results because this will invite extra pressure, complacency etc, all things that can needlessly and negatively impact their next performance. Similar to traders that keep glancing at their P&L a bit too much and are obsessing about meeting their daily/weekly/monthly targets etc, getting carried away will impact their next trade and the amount of risk they take or make them trade well outside the framework of their profitable strategy. Some even completely lose their head and do something stupid, which is the footballing equivalent of getting sent off, and this will likely have a massive negative effect on the end result.

The managers themselves have a plethora of information available to them, coming from all of their analysts and coaches etc. But they don't just dump all of it on the players, they don't want to overload them with information to the point they're unable to perform or even do the basic things correctly. The coaches only give the players the right amount of information, only the most important things, whilst trying to keep the instructions as simple as possible. As traders we try and do the same, chances are we've read many trading and psychology books and we have an overkill of information and guidance, some of it is even conflicting and feels like it does more harm than good, but our only job is to take the few key bits of information needed to execute a profitable trade. And this process is extremely difficult, filtering all this information into something tangible and usable, and simplifying it to the level that it can be executed on a consistent daily basis.

However, on the topic of research and information, taking on new psychological techniques or philosophies etc, simply being aware of some of these things can make a big difference, a difference between a negative and a positive P&L, even without actively trying to apply them. So don't see anything wrong with doing your research or your homework, but there definitely are points of diminishing returns, or even negative returns when/if overthinking it.

I'm just saying this might be a decent time for some self-reflection, with the majority of sporting events suspended and all...