V.12:3 (129-131): Strategies For Overcoming Fear by Adrienne Laris Toghraie,

Strategies For Overcoming Fear by Adrienne Laris Toghraie

How many times has fear blocked your way, whether in trading or otherwise? Worse still, did you know it? Neuro-linguistic programmer Adrienne Toghraie explains how you may be sabotaging your own trading and how you can disarm and conquer that internal saboteur.

Like most beginning traders, Joe had gone through the typical learning curve. At first, beginners' luck led him to believe that he was a market genius who had discovered a gold mine. Then, when his luck inevitably turned, Joe was humbled as the markets took back everything he had pulled out of them, and more.

Still not coming to terms with market realities, Joe then decided that trading was a game. So he played the market as though it were a roller coaster, allowing his emotions to soar when the market went up and plunge when the markets went down.

With his money nearly gone, Joe reached a turning point. He realized that he would either have to get out of the market or take the time to look at trading in a different way. He said to himself, “If others can make it in the market, then so can I.” To his credit, Joe spent the next two years reading and studying the market. The result was a system he developed, tested and paper-traded.

Finally, Joe was ready. That was when trouble started. Just as his system would signal that a profitable opportunity had arrived, Joe would freeze, unable to pull the trigger despite the rules of his system. Overcome with frustration and the loss of his self-confidence, Joe would force himself to take any trade.