Frustration is a part of life, often it occurs when something we didn’t want to happen happens, or more work is created, frustration is also quite prevalent when Forex trading due to the nature of the markets, and things can easily turn against you.
Frustration can lead to further psychological doubts in yourself or your abilities to successfully trade, it can put a hit on the confidence that you have in your trading plan and can also lead to rash decisions being made in an attempt to alleviate any frustrations that maybe there. Nobody likes things going against them so this feeling is natural everyone experiences it, what is important is finding ways to reduce the levels of frustration that are benign felt.
Do Not Blame Yourself
This is probably one of the more powerful ways, but unfortunately, it is also the hardest. When you have had a couple losing trades on a row, self-doubt will begin to creep into the mind of even the most experienced trader. ‘I must have done something wrong’, ‘I am not any good at this’, those are some of the thoughts that may start moving through your head.
The thing is, there is no point in blaming yourself, how would that help resolve the current situation? No one is able to predict upcoming news events, sudden turns in the markets and so everyone experiences losses, that is simply part of trading. Even the biggest corporations in the world make bad trades, you need to use this as an experience to learn from what went wrong, not as a self-loathing exercise which doesn’t help you or your trading.
Don’t Change Your Strategy
Just because something went wrong, it does not mean that your strategy is useless or wrong. Many traders after a couple of losses get rid of their strategy and start looking for a new one that is currently working. This is not a good strategy to take, this will have you jumping around different strategies every could days or weeks, you will not get a chance to actually learn anything from them.
Instead, look at what went wrong, which part of the strategy let you down, then you are also to work out ways to adapt it to be more successful, not only does this give you a better understanding of how your strategy and also the markets work, but it also helps you to prevent any future frustrations that may come from a new strategy also taking some losses.
Check Your Routine
Sometimes a bad trade can come down to something as simple as missing a little bit of analysis, when something goes wrong, use your trading journal to find out what may have caused it, often traders get themselves into a routine, while this is great, it can also lead to serial mistakes being made if your routine misses out a certain bit of analysis, something as simple as checking the upcoming economic news events, then you will forget to do this every single time, and then you will potentially lose every single time a news event takes place during your trade. Sit down and go through your routine on paper, you can then analyse what you have done and whether you have missed anything. You would be surprised how many times people look at their routine and realise that some of the most obvious things are missing.
So when you start to feel frustrated, just know that every other person that has ever traded has felt the same thing, even those that are now professional and making full-time livings from it. Don’t jump into any rash decisions on your strategy, or begin to doubt your own abilities, you are able to be a successful trader, it is all about making small adjustments with each loss until you start to become profitable. Stick at it, believe in yourself and you will be on your way to being a better trader.
