In this episode of Truth About FX, Walter talks about a common trap most traders fall into while sitting in front of the computer. He indulge into trading addiction, its consequences, and how it can lead into serious trading mistakes.
Walter delve into his knowledge of trading psychology and how this can be solved by just simply taking a time-off and re-aligning your beliefs.
Download (Duration: 05:44 / 6.56 MB)
In This Episode:
00:37 – killing a trading account
01:15 – an addiction
01:54 – self-sabotage
02:30 – take a 72-hour break
03:08 – overwriting subconscious desires
04:04 – hypnosis download
05:12 – good but still losing
Tweetables:
You have to treat trading like an addiction. [Click To Tweet].
Start working on your beliefs. [Click To Tweet].
Overwrite negative thoughts with more successful ones. [Click To Tweet].
Announcer: Sometimes, forex trading is a wild and wooly place to be. That’s why Hugh is here, to post your questions to Walter, the naked forex guy. Hugh’s got questions and Walter’s got the answers. Here at the Truth About FX Podcast.
Hugh: Hi, Walter! This is a question that I hear quite a bit and I’ve definitely done this myself. I have a trading plan and a trade checklist but I can’t help from taking trades when I sit down on my computer even if it doesn’t follow my trading plan. This is killing my account. What do I do?
Walter: This is a really good question. This might sound like a funny answer but I can actually post a video in the shownotes for this episode for everyone listening to this and if this is an issue for you.
A video that goes into the neuroscience behind this. Basically, here’s what’s happening. You have to treat this like an addiction just as you would if you’re an alcoholic or you’re a heroine addict or a sex addict or whatever your chosen thing.
For me, it’s ice cream. So I’ve got this ice cream problem, everyone has got something. What you have to do is you have to treat it like an addiction. What happens in your brain is you’re building this neuro pathways and you literally have to stop doing it for seventy-two hours before you can make some head wave.
What that means is it’s doesn’t matter what your addiction is: if it’s trading, buying the CD or pants, if it’s drinking too much alcohol or whatever it is. You’ve got to stop doing that for seventy-two hours.
After you do that, what you want to do is you want to start working on your beliefs. What’s happening is there’s something subconsciously inside of you that’s allowing this to bubble out.
It could be as simple as self-sabotage. A lot of us don’t believe that we are worthy of money or we don’t believe that we should be wealthy because we think wealthy people are assholes or whatever.
We don’t want to be one of those so by extension we do not want to join that group of wealthy people because we feel like, “If I make all these money then I am going to become an asshole and I do not want to be an asshole.”
That is something that is going on there, too. This is sort of an intervention, really. What do they call that place where if you are an alcoholic you go away to the rehab clinic or something?
Hugh: Yeah, rehab clinic.
Walter: Yeah. It is kind of like that. You stay away from your chart for seventy-two hours and then what you want to do is you want to start overwriting your subconscious beliefs. I know it is hard to know what your subconscious beliefs are because they are your subconscious.
That does not matter because what you do know is whatever your results are, that is telling you what your subconscious beliefs are. If your results are that you are taking these crazy trades and you are losing money, then your subconscious beliefs are driving you to lose money.
What you need to do is overwrite those and you can use anything from meditation, to hypnosis to subliminal messaging, lots of different ways that you can overwrite those subconscious desires that are basically sabotaging you in your trading.
Overwrite those with more successful thoughts, more conducive to making money. That is really what is going on here from a psychological point of view. I would encourage you — if this is your issue — number one, to step aside for seventy-two hours.
Number two: come up with a plan, whether that means just booking in a hypnotherapist and telling them what is going on. Hypnotherapist are used to working with people that have like smoking addiction or whatever.
Once you explain what is going on, they will know exactly what to do and they can usually start to chip away at this after a few sessions. Some of them could give you a recording of the session like a CD that you can listen to or an MP3 or something so that you can continue on with that.
That is really what I will suggest if this is something that is a problem for you. The other thing — actually I can put in the shownotes for you, I can put a link up to a hypnosis download for forex traders — that is something that might work too, if that is something that interests you.
Where you can actually get the track and listen to it. As long as you listen to it, at least once a day, what slowly happens overtime is you start to build out more success with beliefs.
I know this is a long would-it answer but I just want to cover this from a number of different angles because I know it is pretty common.
Hugh: It goes really deep and a lot deeper that I think some people realized and it is tempting to maybe ask you in the shownotes or in the questions like “What exercise can I do?” It really goes a lot deeper than that and you cannot really give a one-sentenced solution to it.
Walter: Exactly. Everybody has got something else going on but the important thing to know is that, even though you do not know what your subconscious beliefs are or what is doing this, you do know what your results are.
If your bottom line is that your trading account is not making money, then we know something is going on.
If it is not, if you’ve got a good system and you know it is a good system and your risk management is right and you know that you are risking as you should. In other words, you’ve got a good trading plan and you are still losing money. You’ve got a good system, it’s got a positive expectancy, you’ve got a good risk management, all that is good but you are still losing money then something else is going on.
There is something subconsciously that is basically directing you down this path and you want to move yourself to a different path. The easiest way to do that is to overwrite your subconscious beliefs with more positive ones that is going to push you into a different path.
If that makes any sense. It is really a big problem and it is a great question so thank you for that.
Hugh: Sure! I think that answer is going to help a lot of people. Thanks, Walter.
Shownotes:
http://nanacast.com/forexhypnosis
https://fxjake.wistia.com/medias/txkmane2ii
http://fxjake.wistia.com/medias/txkmane2ii?embedType=iframe&seo=false&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640
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