Stop. Revive. Survive.

September 3, 2018 / By Nick Radge / Trading Psychology

Do you need to stop, revive, survive?

Previously we’ve discussed how being passionate about what you do is an important ingredient towards success and longevity.

We emphasised how exercise should be an essential part of everyone’s weekly trading strategy to maintain physical and psychological well being.

However, beware the paradox that can come into play as we embrace these types of strategies.

That is, physical and mental well being may be keeping us in the game when what we really need to be doing is taking a break.

We become like a punch drunk boxer whose passion and physical strength is driving him to stay in the ring after being knocked down on one too many occasions.

How do we know when it’s time to leave the ring? Time to step back from our trading and take a break?

Here are some signs that it’s time to take a well deserved break:

You’re undisciplined and not following your trading strategy
You’re over trading
You can feel you are no longer trading in the zone
Losses have become more frequent and outside the ‘norm’
You are waking up in the night worried about your positions
The markets have become your only interest
You are starting to ‘revenge trade’
You’ve become moody and easily triggered emotionally
You’ve started to think you know what the markets are going to do from one day to the next.