Becoming a Disciplined Trader
We have found that you develop a thick skin with trading because you have to recognize that when you have a failed trade, it's okay. It doesn't define you as a trader, and to take that loss is a strong choice because you're recognizing that you need to end a trade that's not working now so that you can be open to more opportunities. Choose to trade opportunity instead of expectation! It's not always easy, but it's required for lasting success.
Being authentic about our pitfalls is another way to practice discipline. Learning how to take losses and not internalize them. This way they can be a lesson and a blessing. It's totally okay to have what we like to call potential days where you potentially had a really great trading plan and setup and you just didn't nail it for whatever reason. The fact that you showed up, prepared your trading plan, you tried and maybe fumbled–well hey, that’s still progress. We fail forward!
Another big part of discipline is recognizing the need for a break from time to time. Whether you're pushing yourself too hard in terms of all the things you're trying to accomplish in a day, or maybe you're struggling with reading the market and you've taken a few losses back to back - sometimes this journey can feel heavy. A part of everyone's healthy balance plan and journey in trading is being able to step back. Sometimes it's just taking a day to go on a little day adventure or spending time with a friend - this is balanced and disciplined in that you're respecting your work enough to say - I've been really busy or stressed or anxious or out of sync with the market. I'm just gonna recognize that, call it out and step away for a brief period and rebuild my mental fortitude and peace in another way.
We've had to cultivate a support system to not only be accountable to be disciplined but also to support our psychology because they go hand and hand. You can’t have strong discipline without having strong psychology. Trading can be a very isolating journey. So you need to have that safe space so you don’t feel like you’re alone and can better celebrate yourself along the journey, not just on the great days, but recognizing the need to give yourself credit even when you're disappointed.
“If you don’t like failure, you don’t like improvement.”
~ Jared Tendler, The Mental Game of Trading
You can't be both an early trader and a consistently successful trader - there's just a huge chunk of experience that has to happen between those 2 time periods. And similar to the teenage years, in the messy middle of your trading journey, we each go through a phase where you have to try and experiment and dabble in different strategies, different indicators, try different mentors and programs, and realize all you didn’t know. Feel first hand when you make a trade and you didn't actually want to do that or you tried something new that you weren't fully invested in or prepared for and you were bitten in the ass over it. You had regret afterwards. That’s the messy middle of progress and it's kind of beautiful, funny, dangerous, risky, interesting. If you push through it - you'll get more mature with that experience.
There’s an opportunity to evolve in the humbling experiences where you're like, I see what I did there in hindsight and I can do better than that. And so I will do better. I'm going to get up again tomorrow morning, bright and early, and come back at this thing. I'm gonna take that lesson and progress from it. We have to normalize the fact that when you have a hard day and things don't go your way, you end red, maybe you even damaged your account significantly, and/or you set yourself back on your timeline that you had planned out - that happens. Please give yourself a little bit of patience and peace and grace and love in these moments, because to sit in shame or negativity of an unfavorable trading outcome is really unhealthy and actually not helpful in your journey. Discipline takes time to truly cultivate.
Successfully managing your discipline while trading will only happen by calling out your struggles, deflating their power, acknowledging that those choices are guiding you to your major areas for improvement but they do not define you.
No one wants to talk about the dark, heavy, difficult days. We all want to be winners. That's the business we're in and we all want to be validated. Our time and our efforts and our energy. It's rare that people are talking about the losing days, the really hard days, and the struggle of it all. That's just human nature. It's uncomfortable as hell, but we hope that you find value in our discussion and how willing we are to be open about it, and as authentic as we can with you all. This is our safe space to say forget shame, forget fear and bring on the faith in ourselves and our dedication to our process, discipline, and each other. That's what we want to do here at Market Mamas.