Are you Playing the Trading Blame Game?

Are you playing the trading blame game? It’s easy to look for someone or something to blame when a trade goes against you.

Let’s face it. We’ve all done it at some stage throughout our trading journey.

It was my Broker’s fault for recommending the stock to me. The CEO lied. Moondoggy on Hotcopper said it was a guaranteed winner. Trumps tweet caused me to get stopped out. The markets are corrupt.

Laying blame elsewhere means you are not taking responsibility for your trading. You are disempowering yourself and admitting that you’re not in control.

You have become a victim.

Traders who are consistently struggling often have a victim mindset. They blame all their trade failures on external factors. Strangely enough, the more a victim is wronged, the more they try to justify their argument and harness support from others.

Giving up blame is key to becoming a successful trader. The quicker you can accept market behaviour for what it is, the more grounded your decisions will be in the future.

To do this you need to replace blame with personal responsibility. You’ve probably heard the saying ‘You can’t control everything that is going on around you. Yet you can control how you respond to it.’ Ultimately it’s your choice.

Relinquishing the need for control is very cleansing and freeing. Accept reality for all its uncertainties. Release the stranglehold of what you think your reality should look like.

Of course, we all want an endless run of winning trades. Yet we need to understand that this is not how trading works. In fact this is not how the world works.

There are no straight lines in life. There are no straight lines in nature, and there are certainly no straight lines in the markets.

So start managing the process. Don’t get tied down to preconceived outcomes.

If you find attitudes and feelings of blame creeping into your trading persona, turn it around quickly before it becomes debilitating.

Take control and change your mindset.

Changing your mindset needn’t take hours, days or weeks. It can be done in an instant.

Start now.