How To Break Bad Trading Habits

[Lee Mark]

It is so very true what Antal just noted. Indeed, old habits is really very hard to break. But certainly, I find that where is a will there would be an action. If one trader would really like to improve his trading through breaking old habits, he will definitely manage to do that

No doubt on it; but if we try honestly, then we’ll be able to overcome our bad habits in trading! no doubt, it’s a long term process!

 

[lioneld]

To be a good Forex trader I is much important that we focus on our own trading performance. In fact, when selecting the broker, we should more conscious since the broker are almost scammers. So, by avoiding the scammers I got ForexOne the credible and reliable broker in this market. With them I am doing a well- profitable trading. By following their daily trading instruction, I have developed my trading performance.

No doubt; broker is an important issue here! But the thing is, you have to build your own trading skill to understand the market. Broker can offers you good service; but you need to understand the market opportunities according to your own knowledge!

 

[Andrew McCalam]

losing money in this stock market is a common deal , so any optimistic attitude always motivate us.

 

[Dextor Mason]

Bad habits develop when you trade in demo account without trying to read more about forex strategy first. In short you trade in demo account but you don't have strategy to practice with and end up doing some trading without any system. And when you trade to trade using a strategy you end up having hard time dismissing does wrong habits.

Is it true? trading with the demo account is a bad habit?

 

[lioneld]

Is it true? trading with the demo account is a bad habit?

Never, till now demo is the best way of learning Forex! You just need to take your demo so seriously!

 

[Andrew McCalam]

right broker not an easy deal , thousands brokers almost are available right now in retail market place and most of them are found to be scams.

 

[Cooper Truebridge]

If you want to break bad trading habits, you have to trade according to discipline. You need more than luck to succeed in the affiliate business. Stay away from greed and fear. Keep in mind that the more you experience trading, the more profit you will get. A trader should meditate all the time. Meditation can turn our negative mindset into a positive mindset.

 

[Oscar Shumack]

We all know that practice makes a man perfect. So, practice more to make yourself good. One day you can break bad trading habits.

 

[David Marco]

A good trading plan is very necessary to make money from this market.

 

[Nezami]

Maximum traders in Forex like to trade with high leverage for making profit instantly. But traders who make profit consistency , I don’t think they use high leverage. They way I see it. High leverage gives us the benefits not to worry about margin requirements and one less thing to focus on. Abusing leverage can be costly for traders.

 

[Glenn Phillips]

success is a big deal in this market place because most of the traders who are particularly beginners always become a loser . so be careful guys when trading into this . good luck

 

[Eduardo Lucchese]

All traders should have a good trading plan. One of the worst bad habits a trader can have is trading impulsively and without any guidelines. Traders who take the time to make a trading plan are much more likely to succeed, but even with a plan in place we can develop bad habits. A trader will make impulsive trades even with their plan taped to the wall next to them. They may exit winning trades too quickly or let losses go longer than their plan states they should. In this article we will go into how we can change our bad habits. The process involves how we personally view our successes and failures, as well as the rewards and punishment we give ourselves based on these views. (To learn more, read Major Barriers And Pitfalls on our Learning Center.)
Defining Success

In order to break bad trading habits, traders need to base success or failure on each trade by how they stick to their trading plans and not simply on whether they make or lose money. If you make a bad trade (that is, an undisciplined trade, one not part of your trading plan), but make money on it, you still have to view that as a failure; you cannot congratulate yourself. By congratulating yourself, you are offering a small reward for something done incorrectly.

Also, if you make a good trade (one that fits your trading plan perfectly), and you lose money on it, you have to view it as a success because you followed our plan. It's more likely we berate ourselves even though we followed the plan; in other words we punish ourselves for doing what we were supposed to do! If you lose money, you can then analyze the trades to see if the trading plan can be made more profitable. But, if you continue to reward yourself for undisciplined trades that make money, it will be very hard to change your habits because you are essentially conditioning yourself to make trades that do not fit within your trading plan. If we punish yourself for trades that you lose money on, but that fit within your trading plan, you are much less likely to follow our plan at all.

So, you need to be honest with yourself and avoid accepting undisciplined trades - no matter how profitable they prove to be. Making money on a "bad" trade - holding a massive losing position, only to have it come back leave you a profit - is one of the worst things that can happen to a trader. Tendencies such as these destroy traders over the long run. By trading like this, traders can come to believe that next time they are holding a losing position it will come back. Unfortunately, if this fails to happen just once, it could wipe out your trading account. The trader may also falsely believe that because jumping in and out of the market without paying attention made money yesterday, it might also work today. This is a risky way to play the market.
Changing Your View of Success and Failure

Traders must erase their selective memory. This means, you must remember the times when not sticking to the trading plan hurt you and view those spontaneous trades as a failure. By instigating a mild form of punishment for not sticking to your plan, you will soon realize that not sticking to your thought-out trading plan is a losing proposition over the long run. When you make a trade that does comply with your trading plan, you should pat yourself on the back, even if you lost money.

You can always go back and adjust a trading plan, but the more ingrained our current faulty process for analyzing success and failure, and reward and punishment, the harder it will be to change over time. Every trader can change, but the best time to start changing your bad habits right now.
Applying Reward and Punishment



Once you understand how you are personally defining success and failure, you need to apply a process of reward and punishment to change these habits as quickly as possible. The first step is to change your internal dialog. Traders should praise themselves when they follow their plan, and they should withhold praise when they don't.

The next step involves your external rewards and punishments. Oftentimes, we treat ourselves to dinner or pamper ourselves on a bad day. This should not happen if the bad day resulted from not following the trading plan. So, you should reward yourself when you follow the plan, and whenever possible, withhold rewards (a form of punishment) when you do not stick to your plan.

The word failure in this article is used to show that making money on each trade is not the most important thing. Success for the purpose of this article should be viewed as executing the trading plan you have laid out for yourself. The rewards for success should encourage us to continue with this behavior. The punishment for failing to follow a plan should withhold something we want, but not be negative or self-damaging.
The Bottom Line

Break your bad habits by being honest with yourself about how disciplined you are. Don't deceive yourself into thinking you made a good trade, when in actuality you may have simply gotten lucky. Always stick to a well-thought-out trading plan. Define success as following your trading plan and reward yourself for doing so, regardless of profit or loss. Define failure in your internal dialog as not following your plan, and apply some form of punishment to this action (regardless of profit or loss). By strengthening the rewards or punishments, changes can be made quickly.

Very informative post. Thank you for sharing it.

 

[Nezami]

Leaning from own trading mistake is the best practice! But, we should try to complete our main learning process in the beginning stage of trading!

 

[Glenn Phillips]

sometimes scalping causes huge trouble but overall its really good and comfortable for the traders who above have low amounts.

 

[Alexander Hudson]

A good trading plan can make you successful in this market.

 

[Mark Dahl]

Usually, the most effective way is to take a break from trading and spend a couple of days doing something completely irrelevant.

 

[FXOpen Trader]

Usually, the most effective way is to take a break from trading and spend a couple of days doing something completely irrelevant.

We will need to know that taking a break from trading is also very important for us.

 

[Svetlana Loboda]

risk is everywhere in Forex its a very common thing , there is no one who can deny but if you have proper money and risk management then within a very short time you can bring good amount of profit from here.

 

[Alexander Hudson]

The way of improving is to recover bad practices day by day. It’s like removing one’s trading fear and emotion, overcoming excessive trading, etc. As traders can hardly recover from these bad practices, their success rate is very light. That’s why it plays the key role for developing oneself as a trader.

 

[SaadBinToha]

Just control your greed and be realistic! I see a number of Forex traders try to earn a huge amount of money from their 1st day of trading; Forex market is open for 24 hours, that doesn’t mean you’ll make money in every second! It’s not an easy option to make money in Forex!