Dealing with the pain of trading is probably the biggest factor that separates a profitable trader from a losing trader. If you've been following my Forex journey then you'll remember that pain was what caused me to almost blow out an account last year and stop trading. One of the biggest questions young traders ask themselves is how do I get rid of the pain. Well the answer to that is that you don't. Like anything out your control in life you simply learn to deal with it. Now I've only been seriously trading for about a year and a half, so I would assume that the more experience you have in the markets, the easier it becomes to deal with the pain since you know it's coming, but I still don't think it ever completely goes away. To me at least there are two main types of pain. The first is the type of pain you have to deal with when the market makes that big candle in the opposite direction of your position then proceeds to trade right above your stop , teasing you and almost daring you to just close out your trade. The second type of pain occurs in the exact opposite direction.
So I already spoke on the type of pain you have to deal with when your trade is in the red and your praying, yelling and second guessing yourself about entering the trade. The second type of pain is the pain that occurs when you're in that area where you're in positive territory but still have a ways to go before you hit your target. This is the type of pain when you start to question your targets and get that horrible temptation that I'm sure have all been guilty of at some point in our trading career, and that is taking profits off too early. I forget the exact details but I have a good friend that had a horrible month where he was guilty of this trading sin and it became contagious. It started off as a onetime thing, then before he knew it he was doing it on almost every trade and ended up missing out on nearly 500 pips total because of it.
So what's the solution to both types of pain you ask. NOTHING, just deal with it. Just kidding, in all seriousness, the key is simply having confidence in your abilities. It's when you start second guessing your decisions that you start giving into the pain and fear and end up doing something dumb, only to be mad about it later. My advice is turn off your charts. If you can't see it, then it won't bother you as much.
So I already spoke on the type of pain you have to deal with when your trade is in the red and your praying, yelling and second guessing yourself about entering the trade. The second type of pain is the pain that occurs when you're in that area where you're in positive territory but still have a ways to go before you hit your target. This is the type of pain when you start to question your targets and get that horrible temptation that I'm sure have all been guilty of at some point in our trading career, and that is taking profits off too early. I forget the exact details but I have a good friend that had a horrible month where he was guilty of this trading sin and it became contagious. It started off as a onetime thing, then before he knew it he was doing it on almost every trade and ended up missing out on nearly 500 pips total because of it.
So what's the solution to both types of pain you ask. NOTHING, just deal with it. Just kidding, in all seriousness, the key is simply having confidence in your abilities. It's when you start second guessing your decisions that you start giving into the pain and fear and end up doing something dumb, only to be mad about it later. My advice is turn off your charts. If you can't see it, then it won't bother you as much.
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