Breaking Free from Self Sabotage Mastering the Mind that Trades

Sabotage. Everybody experiences it and what happens? You know, you put good days, you get good weeks, good months together, then suddenly out of nowhere something happens and you just fall apart and you give everything back and more sabotage. You almost see it, almost like, you know, I'm getting there, I'm really getting there. And then all of a sudden I hit this obstacle. Sabotage. I self sabotage. How does that happen? What's it about? Well, I want to give you an idea. Okay. Something very different. If you take a look at sabotage as an issue in performance, you have to begin to ask, what is it about my performance that falls apart at a particular moment, that allows all of a sudden for my game, for my ability to trade effectively to fall apart? I'm going to give you five different areas that most of the people I've worked with over time, this is where they fall into in their sabotage. It's actually a fairly complex area. The first one is that, to be honest with you, people get excited. They start saying, wow, look at me, I'm really beginning to win. I feel good, you know, I feel really good. You know, man, I finally, I finally got this game right. And what they don't notice is that the excitement itself is the danger. Ultimately, in performance psychology for trading, there is a disciplined impartiality that's patient, that has to be there, and that has to be the mind that runs the trading show. Yet when you start feeling good, get excited, look at me, this thing's going pretty good. Suddenly what happens is the emotional state changes. That excitement is really testosterone and dopamine. And suddenly in that concoction, that emotional concoction, boom. You're no longer in that stable, disciplined, patient mind. You're in excitement.

This is exciting. I feel good. The feeling good is not allowed while you trade. Feeling good is something that you allow yourself to experience after you trade. But in the midst of trading, you're back to that disciplined partiality. The other thing, though, there's a deeper psychological piece here too. The second thing, it's a sense of not deserving. Lots of traders I work with, what they'll do is they will start building really good performances up. They start really seeing equity growth. And they say, wow, I'm doing it. And they come to a moment where they say, you know something? They start looking around saying, you know, I don't deserve to make easy money. I need to work harder for money. I've actually had a trader that worked with a high six figure account and what he would do is he would hit into seven figures once he Got there, he'd lose back down in six figures. And it had been a seesaw for five years. Ultimately, what we got out of that is that in the family that he grew up in, nobody was worth a million dollars. So you have to look and you start looking around and going, you know, I don't know. I don't know. That's the sign where you need to be looking at your sense of deserving. Am I worthy of making this? Am I worthy of making the kind of money that you can make in trading? Or do I deserve to lose and not achieve a higher level? That's big time. Another one that's very, very common in trading is what I would call greed or lust. I actually prefer the term lust because it's.

I want it so bad. I want it so bad, I'm gonna make it happen. I'm gonna make it happen. And you want more, and you want more, and you want more and you win. And it just fuels. It just fuels you. It's almost like being a casino and they let you win a little. Unfortunately, what they know is this, is that they know they have the house advantage over time, and they're going to let you keep playing because they're going to get it all back. The same thing happens when you fall into this lust or greed. You want more. But the problem is, again, that want more. What you're looking at is an emotional state, this lust that generates this wanting more. And you end up taking gambles that you would never take in a sane state of mind. That's a big problem with traders. As they get lustful, they chase trades, they get lustful, they become impulsive in trades. They want to make things happen. No, in trading, what happens is it's this patient discipline. You wait for things to come to you.

Another very popular one is this. It's not willing to lose. It's very common for a trader to say, you know something. I know I'm in this place where I have been very disciplined in the way I apply my rules. And I've come to a moment where, you know, I've got this thing down and I don't. I don't take risks that I shouldn't. Then they start winning and they start going, you know something? I'm at a bigger load here. I'm not willing to lose anymore. I'm confident now that I can do this. And ultimately what happened is that not willing to lose, let's face it, really great. Trading is as much about.

Landing on the right side of probability. That's One part. But it's also when you're wrong, you promptly admit it, you cut your losses and you get out. You don't compound the problem. Well, that's the problem with not willing to lose. I'm going to give it some more room. And all of a sudden what you realize is you've given all this stuff more and more and more and more room and you have blown good days, good weeks, good months worth of work.

The last thing is really called scarcity thinking. As you come to a moment of going, you know something, I'm making this money, I'm making this money, I'm really, I'm getting it there. Oh my God, what if it's taken from me? What if, what if the markets come and take it away from me? What if, do you see the scarcity thinking in there? Ultimately it's one of the big ones and it's literally where you start going. You know, things are going pretty good, you know, and you're looking around going, you know, maybe they're going too good and you're beginning to see it. And you start getting cautious and again you start falling out of the emotional states of discipline, impartiality and patience. And you start falling into this caution of going, you know, I need to be careful, I need to cut pulling back. What if bad things start happening? What if somebody starts trying to take it from me? This is what you notice, friends. And ultimately when you come down to this, you realize that these, some of them are rookie mistakes like excitement. Those are things. And lust. That's something that sometimes once you begin to realize that no, you have to manage that emotional state, that mindset that you're in in trading. But other times you start getting into this greed and lust and you realize there's something in you that wants to prove themselves and they want to be right. And then when you get into non deserving, you start realizing there is material in my psychology that needs to be reorganized so it's at higher functioning. Okay? Almost all traders come to the show, come to trading without the mind they need for trading. That's common and that's why you see so many people's traders working hard, doing everything right and blowing it up and losing their capital and getting out. Ultimately it's about organizing that psychology and recognizing that once you know how to trade, 80% of the game is your psychology. Check into it, look at the five areas and see if one matches up with you in the way you sabotage and you don't exploit the potential sitting right in front of your eyes, what mind do you bring into that moment? And as you do it, check out the article that goes with this. Check out the free webinar that goes along with this video. Also powerful stuff. Do some learning here. Find out what's at the core of that sabotage and basically master that. Good luck with you and let me know if we can help. Thank you.