Hi everyone, I joined Apex/Sniper just over a year ago. During that time I’ve blown multiple Leeloo Evaluation Accounts as I try to get to grips with this trading thing we are all trying accomplish.
The main thing I’ve struggled with over the past year is the mental side of trading and I know I’m not alone in this.
I’ll try and keep this post as short as I can but hopefully some of the things I share may help others who are trying to overcome this battle.
I won’t waste time saying all the things I’ve done wrong because they are the same things many are also doing so you know what they are.
For me things got so bad that I completely lost confidence in myself, the Apex strategies and Apex itself. At the same time deep down I also knew the real problem was me. That something was so wrong with me, because only an idiot would consistently achieve such bad results as I was.
So what did I do….
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I made a decision that I was going to fix this problem. This comes from WHY you are trading. Simply saying I want to make money from trading is okay, but how badly do you want to succeed at it. If its not REAL BAD then you need to focus on you WHY more.
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I got comfortable with my Trading Strategies and acceptable risk. I did this by watching hours and hours of the training videos and then spending hours practicing on replay.
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I signed up for the $25K Evaluation account and traded 2 Micro contracts on that account. It takes a long time to qualify doing that but I find it helps mentally at this stage as the risk is low. The main purpose for this is not just to qualify the account but I use it as a training exercise to get rid of all the stupid stuff I do and get comfortable with the strategies and the mental side.
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A mistake I made was to quit a Mentor Room. I regret this now but I have to accept it and move on. Two main reasons I quit was ** I didn’t contribute much in the group. Basically, I didn’t know what I didn’t know so didn’t know what to ask. (The answer is, just post your charts) ** The other reason was. I now use a combination of 2 Apex Strategies as I find this much more comfortable with my trading style in identifying high probability set ups. So didn’t want to post charts in the room as this would cause confusion with other members.
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The Psychology side was more difficult. I signed up for the mind mastery, I also read books by Mark Douglas and watched a lot of his video’s, along with doing the recommended exercises. All this gave me a better understanding of why and how our emotions play a big part in trading and helped a little. But wasn’t the big fix I was looking for. Not saying they don’t work. What I am saying is we all respond to different things in different ways. What works for one may not work for another.
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I felt like I needed a new brain as the one I had wasn’t working properly. I knew I shouldn’t move my stop loss or should close a losing trade early. But I was still doing all this stupid stuff. Then feeling all the regret and embarrassment when another account was blown.
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This lead me down another path. I knew people went to a hypnotist to help with things like smoking etc. So I started searching for a hypnotist in my local area. Although I didn’t end up going down that route. I did find something very similar to it. I’m now a few months into a 5 month programme and my trading results are improving.
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My confidence in myself and Apex is back and I’m feeling great and very positive for the future. I still have the odd stupid moment but I’m improving a little each day/week. I’m close to qualifying my Evaluation account and feel ready for a funded account when that comes.
Since my decision to fix the problem. My attitude has been to get the basics right regardless of how long it takes. When I can trade consistently with 2 contracts then I can do the same with multiple contracts and accounts. Take small steps and grow. So when you take bigger ones you’re ready.
Sorry for the long post and hope it helps others a little who are fighting their own battles
Dave