Self-Sabotage
Self-sabotage is making the same mistake over and over again. The problem is that many people who do this don't even know they are repeating the same mistake. Why? Because (1) they can blame someone else for their results -- It was my broker's fault. Or (2) they can justify the results -- My system is no good or its hard to make money in this market. Or (3) they can even blame themselves without recognizing the error by saying something like, "I'm a stupid idiot."
If the problem is something like constantly overtrading or not keeping your stops or entering on a whim, etc.,then deciding you're a stupid idiot does nothing to fix it. Stopping the mistake is what fixes it. Or dealing with the underlying problem is what fixes it. And that's what we do at www.iitm.com. We help you recongize mistakes, fix them, or deal with the self sabotage.
Comments
How true! I have been a victim of self-sabotage year after year, making the same mistakes repeatedly. Learnt a lot from your Financial Freedom book. However, as a prop trader in FX, I am still not sure about how to determine the position size. Suppose my loss-limit is $10,000 per day and have a limit of $5 million. Although they dont say so, I will get fired if I keep losing 10,000 day after day! So let's assume I can lose $100,000 before alarm bells ring. How would you choose your posn size? 1.5% of 100K is just 1,500 and if I use a 20-point stop, this means my postion size can never exceed 750,000 (whereas my limit is $10 mio). How can I ever hope to make my budget!! Please clarify. Thanks.
Posted by: RR | July 13, 2006 06:44 AM