Think back to a bad situation in which you were victimised . This can be a social situation where you were wronged or trading situation where you lost money in a trade and blamed your system , technology , broker , etc . If you can , find a time that is still emotionally charged for you . Now take out a piece of paper ( or open a new text document on the computer ), and write a page on who was at fault , how you got screwed , why you weren ' t to blame . Exaggerate your " victimhood ." Go into as much detail as you can . Remember , it ' s OK to let the feelings of being wronged override the narrative . Take a break , and come back to this exercise later .
Then take another sheet of paper , and on this one , write down the same incident . This time , take full responsibility for the same event : how you ignored some warning flags , how you took shortcuts , gave up trading control to someone else , cancelled your stop-loss , etc . Exaggerate the total responsibility viewpoint . Figure out a way to take responsibility for your computer failure or the phones going down ! Everything . Let these two pages sit overnight .
The next morning re-read them both . Enter thoughts into your journal .
Think back to a bad situation in which you were victimised . This can be a social situation where you were wronged or trading situation where you lost money in a trade and blamed your system , technology , broker , etc . If you can , find a time that is still emotionally charged for you . Now take out a piece of paper ( or open a new text document on the computer ), and write a page on who was at fault , how you got screwed , why you weren ' t to blame . Exaggerate your " victimhood ." Go into as much detail as you can . Remember , it ' s OK to let the feelings of being wronged override the narrative . Take a break , and come back to this exercise later .
Then take another sheet of paper , and on this one , write down the same incident . This time , take full responsibility for the same event : how you ignored some warning flags , how you took shortcuts , gave up trading control to someone else , cancelled your stop-loss , etc . Exaggerate the total responsibility viewpoint . Figure out a way to take responsibility for your computer failure or the phones going down ! Everything . Let these two pages sit overnight .
Evaluation
The next morning re-read them both . Enter thoughts into your journal .
The Final Leg
The final leg of the stool is loving life . I have never met a trader who is prepared for this final test . Like searching for the Holy Grail , the last few steps are the most challenging . They are challenging precisely because every trader who produces consistent profits never expects to be hit after success . In addition to developing a trading methodology and gaining domain experience in a particular market , a winning trader overcomes , melts or