Hi guuuys. I know that a trader’s psychology could have a big impact on his trading, but I feel like it’s just normal for people to have down moments every now and then. Like, maybe, after a loss, I usually think about what I did wrong, and although I try to be as rational as possible, I can’t help but doubt my trading.
Has this ever happened to you? What led you to this and what did you do about it? I’m not sure that those with decades of experience still go through this, but I’m just curious. Is it wrong to doubt yourself? If you do, does that mean trading is not for you?
Waaaaah. Lots of questions! I’m so sorry. I’m just typing exactly what I’m thinking right now. Thanks in advance for your responses guys!
There’s nothing abnormal about losing confidence when things aren’t going good. Even the best of the best have bad days/weeks. That’s the nature of this beast.
When you’re in a slump the best thing to do is step away for a few hours or even days. Go out, take the dog for a walk (please pick up after it). You usually come back refreshed and with a completely different attitude.
losing is all part of the game. The good thing is that we have control over how much we want to risk. A lot of people start out overtrading and chasing after the money, which causes them to lose more than they want starting out. Just hang in there and keep pushing !
Of course it is the integral part of the game but we have to minimise its presence because it can be really painful. We don’t have unlimited deposit to not care about the number of losing trades and to make their number safer we have to sacrifice with our big profit targets and choose modest one.
you’re right…i often see a lot of traders starting out trying to hold their positions when that’s not a good idea at all (unless you have a large capital),your best bet is to just shoot for 10-30 pips per trade, get your money, and hop off the charts until the next trading day…you must have realistic goals
Feeling dejected is part and parcel of a developing trader. There was a time when I could not win a single trade, no matter what I tried. I felt like I was cursed and that I would never be able to trade profitably. But slowly, over time, I received glimmers of clarity. Even as late as two days ago something clicked and my analysis abilities improved measurably.
As you continue to revisit your trades to see how you might have analyzed and traded those trades, given the benefit of hindsight, your brain will register the patterns and create connections. Over a period of time things will begin to fall into place and you will find that your trading will improve slowly. These improvements are cumulative and one day you will realize that you have a newfound confidence.
If you feel like you are not progressing at all then take a week off from trading and all things related to trading including spreading your cheer here at BabyPips. We will all miss you for sure but we’ll understand and support you. When you return to trading again you will be astounded at how much better you are at it.
What you are experiencing is normal and par for the course. Keep at it. If there is anything else that I can do to help then please feel free to reach out to me.
sooo true, I thought the market was against me at first LOL I was like what the hell am I doing wrong? I’ve even cried before because I was so frustrated, but like you said things will start to click. It happens to everyone, you just have to be strong enough to not quit after you’ve lost some money
It is normal for the trader to feel something like this. Even if you have a few years of experience, you cannot be confident in all your trading decisions for all the time. As usual, there are two types of doubts in trading.
Doubts in the particular trade. It happens when trader finds a setup described in his trading rules - exactly as he is looking for. But despite the fact that it fits all requirements and rules the trader avoids sending an order just because he is not sure that everything would be fine. Actually, it is one of the types of fears in trading. To be able to deal with it, trader should understand that he is working with probabilities and there would be no situations with guaranteed results, so it is enough to have a situation with a relatively high probability of positive outcome. In fact, one particular trade means nothing in the terms of weeks or months, so just make trades in accordance with your system.
Disbelief in trading system and in own trading skills in general. Situations like that could take place after huge losses or lengthy row of losing trades. If you see something like that, first of all you need to find out the reason. If such underperformance caused by your mistakes, you should make your best to avoid them in future. At the same time, if you have been acting strictly in accordance with the strategy, the problem could be caused by changes in the market dynamic that may take place from time to time. To find this, you can compare the results obtained through the backtesting your system on historical data describing the past performance and the actual performance in current market conditions. If they are different, you will have to make changes to keep your strategy up to date. By the way, backtesting is a great approach to understand the performance of your strategy and it could be useful in various situations.
And one more important aspect. Such feelings like unconfidence or disbelief may take place just because you are tired or exhausted by trading process. So, the first thing you have to do is to take a rest.
I doubt them every time cause it’s not guranteed income business and that’s really it. See my point with that matter or not ? Let’s please do something with that anyway. I see you are in doubts about that. Let me know something else.
It happens all the time, self doubt is very evident in my trading almost every time I make a loss. Even when in profit I start to worry that it will turn a loss, it’s almost constant. It has been a big struggle but I recently read a good book - Trading in the zone, which has helped frame my emotions into words and situations, so I can deal with these self doubts better. If I allow these doubts to grow then I can start to doubt my entire trading abilities.
For me it has led to deep introspection. I have begun to realise that these doubts are internal, that they surface when they have a situation to frame themselves around. They are linked to self doubt internally. What I try to do I go back to my trading journal. I re-read the system and helps me to check that I am in fact following a proven system. I sort of talk myself out of the emotion by using reason, such as, this is one trade out of 100 I expect to do this year, that is 1 percent, or remembering that the potential loss is x % and I can take x many losses still and so on.
I think it is normal to have self doubt. I am even being able to realise the self doubt is linked to fear of the unknown and to lack of confidence. I try to realise that the trading and the self doubt are actually separate things, the self doubt is not related to the actual trading. If I don’t get a job I apply for, the same self doubt occurs, even though I know I’ve held down jobs before. My current way for dealing with it is to talk reason to myself, such as my trading system and acknowledging I am feeling down, then telling myself in a day or two I will feel better as my dopamine levels re-adjust.
So it does not mean trading is not for me as I know my self doubt is become less intense the more I trade. Self doubt is just a tool to better understand ourselves and develop strategies that suit us better.
Thanks for your advice, what you just narrated was what am going through, have not make any withdrawal since I started trading, please I need your help and guidance
Thank you ! You have encouraged me significantly as I have hit a rough spot in my start and your answer matched the attitude I started with but have lost. Slowly eroded away with the losing trades. Many thanks for the encouragement. Time for me to continue
I doubt even entering positions. When I see a setup based on my rules, doubt creeps in and I carry out extra checks like seeing which fundamental events might affect the direction of the trend. And then cus if that it takes so long before I even get into the trade. Invariably this leads to more losses than gains. And it hurts
Hi,
I have been in same situation month ago, I have loss £20k in 3 days, I have learned my trading and I’m my first month make £8700, and after that keep making money and I keep trading with everything, currency, commodities, options.
But after sudden I start loosing money and all my profit gone + 70% of my investment. I don’t know what should I do as my account in loss for all my trade.
I have add some more money as don’t want I lost my remaining open trade as well, and 10 day didn’t do anything and not looking into my trading account.
After 10 days I login I didn’t see anything better but my loss is bit less but still loosing my 60% of investment.
I have downloaded all my trade which I did my first month and make profit, analyze all profit trade and I find out what I did wrong and again started same style trading which I use to do in earlier time and finally start making profit on trade.
Now come to your situation, which is similar of most of trader went through this, download all trade which you make profit, look all trade you loss money and analyze, and you can have answer what you doing wrong.
My personal experience say don’t give up , as you make profit or loss you get experience and learn from experience you will be ok.
Yeah that’s perfectly normal - whether your doubts are right or wrong - only you and the results spreadsheet can answer.
If you look at the real traders from the past - most lost everything they owned - several times before they “made it” - My own favourite story is “Pit Bull” (Marty “Buzzy” Schwartz)
My own story sits here;
It seems to me that you are about ready to enter “phase 2” - of your own trading story. When you begin to understand that it is not as easy as “they” lead you to believe.
In one of his books - “Come into my trading room” ? Dr Alexander Elder wrote “Learning to trade will cost you as much as a good College degree” - He was American, so that was wquite a lot of money.
He wrote "The only way to learn to trade is to put an amount of money into a trading account - trade that until it is all gone - then STOP, Read and learn all you can and repeat the process - as many times as it takes.! "
Now the advantage YOU have is that in “Our day” there were no such things as “Demo accounts”
No lass - it’s part of growing up - The only thing that stops you in this “Game” is you yourself giving up !
Determination and bloody mindedness - Stubborn refusal to give up AND a huge belief in YOURSELF are the tools to take you to success.
Youcan look around you and see if there’s an easier way to become great - but knowing where you are Geographically, I’d say “Hell no!” and as I said elsewhwere some months ago - I think you’ll make it ! xx
I know that a trader’s psychology could have a big impact on his trading, but I feel like it’s just normal for people to have down moments every now and then. 
Like, maybe, after a loss, I usually think about what I did wrong, and although I try to be as rational as possible, I can’t help but doubt my trading. 
Thanks in advance for your responses guys! 
When you return to trading again you will be astounded at how much better you are at it.
