Forgiveness is a new topic for me in my trading career. Being the competitive person that I am; losing is not fun for me. I’m sure its not fun if your not really competitive either. But for me, it’s akin to taking a baseball bat across the bridge of my nose… it hurts that bad. My drive to win has caused me to be hard on myself in many areas of my life.. but especially in trading. I work for months and years to develop a trading strategy with solid disciplines for success, only to blow my entire month or a string of months by falling into a couple ”discipline blow-up days”…. (if you are a trader you know what I’m talking about… a day where every rule you have ever been taught or learned has left your mind). These days rock me to my core. They set me back and take my breath away. They have a knack for shaking my confidence and making me sick to my stomach. Then after I gather myself from all my physical ailments, I begin to bash myself mentally. Thought after thought after thought of “how could I let this happen.” ”How many times do we have to go through this?” etc etc etc… I am learning that this internal “ass chewing” is very very destructive. I have learned that each thought we have attracts another thought like itself. So, beating myself up only leads to more beating myself up and puts me on a path towards the very place I dont want to go. I am sure you have heard the saying, “As a man thinketh, so he is.” The more we think we are something the more we become it.
The way to prevent a cyclic downturn is to learn to forgive yourself.
Forgiving oneself doesn’t mean that it won’t still hurt to lose. It doesn’t mean that you have completely forgotten your missteps. But what it does is release you from the negativity in your heart… the all destructive judgement. And thereby opens you up; it makes room for positive thoughts and steps forward. In Mark Whistler’s book “Trading with Passion and Purpose” he quotes Catherine Ponder on her take of “The Vacuum Law of Prosperity.”
“if you want greater good, greater prosperity in your life, start forming a vacuum to receive it!”
In other words, we need to clear ourselves of the self loathing judgement, and make room for positivity and prosperity in our thoughts. So by releasing our judgement about ourselves we clear our minds for positive thoughts of esteem. Our focus shifts from finding all the things we have done wrong, to what we do right. We then are able to break the cycle of negativity and easily follow our disciplines for success.
