Tilt Prevention
This might sound crazy, but it’s fairly common to find ourselves in a winning trade that has gone far beyond what we thought was possible. When this happens, we get caught up in a weird fear/greed tornado where we’re both greedy and hopeful for even more gains, while terrified out of our minds of losing our sudden windfall.
This is a strange place to be.
I’ve harped on this in the past, but it bears repeating. The best way I know to prevent myself from getting into a tricky mental spiral that prevents me from acting in my best interests is to always have a plan BEFORE getting into the trade.
Again, fairly obvious why this is important for a trade or strategy that is losing money. But it’s equally important for trades that are going our way! Where are we taking profits? What is our signal that enough is enough? At the end of the day, we’re here to make money and therefore a plan for harvesting profits is essential.
Yes, I do believe the old adage that “profits take care of themselves,” but there still needs to be a set of rules and/or circumstances that alert us that it’s now time to book our profit and celebrate our win. If we don’t, we expose ourselves to making emotional and poorly-timed decisions that are detrimental to our long-term success.
Have a plan for winning! Then win.