the-daily-trading-coach-101-lessons-for-becoming-your-own-trading-psychologist-brett-steenbarger-_2009_-a23

Remapping the Mind 171feel the horror of literally losing control of your mind and behavior. Muchof the motivation to change faulty schemas will come from the awarenessof the pain they inflict in all aspects of your life.Automatic thoughts don’t just enter our mind; they take over. Wechange when we sustain the motivation to stay in control of ourminds.We’ve seen that reviewing your self-talk via audio or video recordingand tracking your most extreme emotions during trading can alert you toyour stinkin’ thinkin’. Another powerful tool to help identify problematicschemas and thought patterns is to review your absolute worst trading decisions.Your worst trading decisions may or may not be your largest losingtrades; they could be occasions in which you simply missed a golden opportunity.You’ll know your worst trading decisions by your reaction tothem, “How could I have done that?” That reaction is a fantastic tell, indicatingthat you truly were not in your proper mindset when you made thepoor decision. At some level, when you’re mystified how you could havebeen so mistaken or boneheaded, you are recognizing that your mind hadbeen hijacked.Once you identify these worst trades—and this will require a review ofyour journal, as well as a look back on your recent trading experience—youthen want to re-create the thoughts and feelings that led to the faultydecision-making. Normally we like to put such episodes behind us, witha simple reassurance that next time we’ll trade with better discipline andpreparation. But in this exercise, you want to perform a psychological autopsyand exhume your faulty decision-making process in all its gory detail.What were you thinking at the time? What were you feeling? What were youtrying to avoid or accomplish with your trading decision?The common thoughts and feelings during these poor tradingepisodes will be your clue as to the schemas that were being activatedat the time. Perhaps it was a safety schema: you were telling yourself thatyou could not afford to lose paper profits or to take a particular risk. Alternatively,it could have been a self-worth schema, as you told yourself howgreat it would be if this trade hit a home run. Your feelings during thesetrades—the fear, the overconfidence—will provide valuable clues as to theautomatic thoughts that were generated.Our worst trades come from reacting to our automatic thoughtsinstead of markets themselves.In my own trading, a common schema that is activated is a variationof the safety theme: avoid danger. To be sure, this can be a useful mode at