Greening Up is NOT Always Good…

Locking in a tasty green, feels good doesn’t it?

And so the mistakes begin…

Extremely Cliché:

Do you love trading? I don’t mean the money, the thrill or the sports even.

I mean the process. The methodical approach, problem solving and interpretation of a betting market. The flow, support and resistance, weight of money, market analysis, momentum or risk management. The actual trading part.

I suspect very few do.

After all, the by-product of trading is the cool part right? Money.

Over the years I’ve been privileged enough to meet many traders, punters and automation wizards. As a general observation, there is one very big common difference between those who win a lot, and those who don’t. Their general outlook and attitude. In fact, the more successful they’ve been, the more this applies…

Winners enjoy the experience, not the result. They’re obsessed with it, how it works, the in’s and out’s, what drives the market (and their own emotions in the moment).

Because of this relentless outlook and attitude, rather than a quick cash-grab, they’re in a better position to succeed. If they have a losing trade (while doing the right thing), the response is ‘no big deal’. Whereas if they make a silly mistake and come out on-top, the view is ‘that was lucky’.

On the flip-side: should they win (while doing the right thing) the view is ‘great, decent trade’. But if they broke their rules, acted on impulse and done something stupid (losing in the process). The outlook is; ‘that was daft, I deserved it’.

Is this how you look at things whilst trading? Or…

Money Matters Most

…Is this more like you.

• Can’t stop checking your balance
• Focused on the overall profit (or loss)
• Short term mindset

Do you beat yourself up when you lose? regardless of if you were applying yourself methodically. Is progress measured on how much your up and or down on the day?

Was it the cat’s fault for jumping out the window when you lost, but your skill and know-how when you made a profit?

I hate to say it, but that’s the complete opposite outlook. And if you find yourself doing that, it’s not too late to change things a little! It’s practically gambling. Not only will it harm the overall balance, but you’ll miss out on plenty of learning opportunities. You just can’t think clearly and focus on the market whilst thinking and measuring success like that.

Hence the blog title… Greening up isn’t always good. If it’s not for the right reasons.

An Interesting Point:

Assuming you’ve not rolled your eyes and clicked away yet, have you ever noticed this happen:

When winning, you rarely exceed a certain profit figure. For years this happened to me, in fact I’ve blogged about it years ago.

For some time I never seemed to be able to get over £10 per race. It was really frustrating, but I had no idea why. It happened all too often for it to be the limitations of my edge, plus every market is not equal. There should be some kind of variation in results from time to time.

Linked with the second type of outlook mentioned above, I soon realised I was self-limiting. For me, that tenner a race figure was ‘good’ in my mind’s eye, and so I’d hedge up and take my foot off the gas once I’d reached it. Not ideal when you consider I wasn’t limiting my losses so easily.

The big change come after a chat with another more experienced trader (it didn’t happen quickly either, a couple of weeks maybe). But after adjusting my own attitude, it felt a bit foolish. The whole time I’d been throttling my own results…

Not exactly the magic formula so many seem to look for, but an important post. Have a think about it, if this post just helps one person tip the scales it’ll have been worth it…

Recent: At Last… Slowing Down. Plus Trading Guide Update Inbound

NOTE: Trading Guide update is likely to be at the end of September 2017