What Drives you More: Your Passion for Trading or your Addiction? Tips on Fostering a Healthy Trading Passion

I was wondering how many hours a day you need to devote to trading. Is it hard for you to tear yourself apart from the heuristic technical indicators? Have those closest to you ever stated that you’re always glued “to the market? What exactly drives you, if anything? Is it your passion, or are you hooked on something? (I’ll touch on this later).

Many of us, I’m sure, have a profound connection to the foreign exchange market but we should all be aware that there’s a thin line between enthusiasm and unhealthy attachment. Now, in terms of both time and money, how much time and effort should you put into studying the markets and engaging in trading?

Two elements I believe contribute to this for both novice and seasoned traders.

Time Frame:

A trader operating on a daily time frame will notice significant differences when switching to a 5-minute time window. To illustrate, let’s assume you choose to trade on a daily period, which results in a complete candle every 24 hours.

It would be counterproductive to check the chart every hour, every 15 minutes, or every 30 minutes, since the candle is still in the stage of formation and would never appear at any of those intervals.

Due to the lengthy formation of a candle, traders and analysts must allocate more time to monitoring markets while viewing longer time frames. On the other hand, if you trade off a shorter time frame—say, five minutes—this is where you should focus the bulk of your market research and trading efforts.

The formation of a new candle every 5 minutes reflects the rapid pace of the market, forcing traders to decide whether to purchase on a price break out of resistance or to wait for a retest. Should you cut your losses immediately if the market doesn’t go your way, or do you stick with the trade and hope it turns around?

The lesser timescale, which is obvious, shifts considerably quicker than the greater timeframe. More effort is spent on market analysis and trades as time frames become shorter.

Experience:

There is also the factor of experience. As I’ve seen, new traders sometimes spend hours studying the markets before making their first trade.

They may examine the market for as little as 5 minutes or as long as 30 minutes, depending on the time of day or week and when they find a trading setup, say on the daily timeframe, they may examine the lower timeframe to determine whether the transaction would be profitable.

Consequently, traders with this level of expertise spend a significant amount of time trading and monitoring the markets; nevertheless, more experienced investors know what they are looking for and have a strong grasp of how their trading setup works.

They aren’t all over the place, so they don’t waste a lot of time poring over market data and making trades.

Experience obviously plays a huge role. Traders with less experience tend to spend all day staring at their screens in the hopes of spotting a profitable trading opportunity, while more seasoned pros wait patiently for the market to present itself before jumping in.

In that respect, they resemble lions more than any other creature; hence they thrive.

Worthiness:

By judging both the elements, spending more time intensely studying and trading the market won’t always increase your productivity however this is a coin with two sides.

If you’re a new trainer, you’ll need screen time to learn how to read the opportunities, the price section, and how to detect support and resistance, thus I agree that you’ll spend more time evaluating the markets.

Even so, if you’ve mastered a certain aspect of trading—after 2 or 3 years of considerable practice—adding extra time won’t make you a more proficient trader or more productive.

Spending more time training and researching the markets will likely lead to poorer outcomes since, in most cases, doing so will drive you to overtrade, i.e., to look for a trading setup when one does not exist or to take action when no such setup exists.

There are, therefore, opposing viewpoints on the matter at hand. It’s true that having more time on your hands doesn’t automatically make you more productive but if you’re just starting out in the trading world, you’ll benefit greatly from having more of it.

This is especially true in terms of screen time, which will allow you to learn more about the market, the price and the way it rises and falls.

Trading is a business not for the addicts

Despite the facts that we discussed (as Candlestick Charts are the cornerstone of behind-the-scenes to determine potential price moves based on past patterns), a sizable gap persists in trading experience between rookies and seasoned pros—and what I’m so concerned about is the element of probability in trading; there is not much of a chasm between enjoying it and being hooked to it (chronic addiction).

Traders that are genuinely invested in their professions will keep prospering. Those who approach the markets with enthusiasm or addiction may have a successful trading career.

However, compulsive traders often neglect other areas of their lives in order to feed their addiction. They stop enjoying what formerly brought them pleasure and instead become consumed by an unhealthy trading obsession with success.

Eventually, an addict’s experience will burn them out due to the ups and downs of their obsession. A trading addiction may be exhausting on personal relationships and financially disastrous due to the need to trade and the accompanying dread of loss.

While successful outcomes may be achieved by both enthusiastic and addicted traders, differentiating between the two can be challenging. The fact that enthusiastic traders are capable of sustaining their accomplishment without compromising other facets of their life is what sets them apart from other investors.

How can we prevent our enthusiasm for trading to becoming destructive?

A basic principle, “harmonious passion,” is described in depth in the book The Passion Paradox, which they claim to have discovered as a means of solving the paradox.

Developing a mastery mentality is essential for harmonious passion. Anything which is done for its own sake; is precisely what I’m referencing when I talk about “flow.”

It’s a good sign if you appreciate your time spent trading and monitoring the markets. You like challenging yourself to grow as a trader and you do it often. You aren’t motivated by things like public acclaim, material gain, or the dread of disappointment.

These are some initial thought-provokers that clarify your clouded intentions:

• Am I someone who often places larger wagers than I need to in order to make a profit?
• When I tell myself enough to quit trading, how frequently do I stick with it anyway?
• Is it true that I’ve attempted to make up for my losses by taking more stakes?
• Is trading to blame for my monetary woes?
• To what extent does the sting of defeat outweigh the thrill of victory?
• Have I ever been advised I trade too often and need to slow down?
• Have my interpersonal connections suffered as a result of my trading activities?
• Is it possible that I place trades for no other reason than boredom?

If you’ve given even one yes response or perhaps more than 60% of them, you may have already crossed into the opposing realm! No need to panic; this is not the end of the world.

It’s not too late to make this into the kind of “harmonious passion” discussed by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness in their publication.

As I’ve told you, having a “mastery attitude” means you do something because you like it rather than to get some external benefit.

For a trader, this involves taking pleasure in activities like chart study, price action analysis, economic data dissection, trade record keeping, and process-oriented self-improvement.

Is there a way to cultivate a “harmonious passion” for trading?

There are 3 doable methods, as outlined in The Passion Paradox. Although not designed with traders in mind, these strategies are easily adaptable to the trading world.

Today, let’s examine how to put these principles to work so that your love of trading becomes strong and lasts.

Emphasis on efforts rather than outcomes.

You may immediately use this rule in your trading strategies. Trade is a game of chance and one should accept the uncertainty. Thus, short-term outcomes might be misleading as they are not indicative of long-term success.

It is the reason that traders will put more emphasis on the procedure and your trading strategy is the foundation upon which you build.

Instead of focusing on the magnitude of your trading earnings, focus on how well you stick to your trading strategy.

Recognize and reward yourself for accomplishing even the smallest goals, such as placing a trade that follows your market rules and strategy. Put an end to your fixation on making quick money in the market.

Sometimes, keeping records of your trading success by recording your profits and losses is essential, you should bear in mind that this is by no means the whole picture. One risk of being very profit-driven is experiencing frequent disappointment when objectives aren’t met.

As a result, you may lose focus on your trading strategy and accomplishments so far. Vaguely recall that deliberate and consistent practice is the key to making headway.

Chill out and brace yourself for the unexpected. 

Naturally, this is far simpler in theory than applying in practice, particularly if you’re witnessing promising investment opportunities in the market.

Now, waiting for favourable high-probability setups is one aspect of patience but another is being compassionate with yourself when you inevitably fail or cease to perform.

Acknowledge being a trader is like being on a thrill ride that never stops going up and down. The markets will swing for the worst. There will be a sense of progress followed by a reversal of progress. Over-eagerness for victory makes you a sitting duck for things offering fast remedies.

Stop being so hard on yourself; no one is perfect, not even seasoned traders. Moreover, you have zero say in the direction of the market. The way you handle it is what counts

Learning to be patient is a great way to anchor your expectations and fortify your mental fortitude.

Don’t ever forget to Establish capital restrictions.

After a string of victories, have you found yourself succumbing to cockiness and arrogance? Or engaged in trading with the intention of exacting revenge following a string of unsuccessful transactions? It happens!

Setting a loss limit as a predetermined proportion of your account balance helps protect your financial stability and psychological well-being, fostering harmonious passion. Furthermore, you’ll be able to rein in your trading compulsions and retain your cool under pressure.

Know when to walk away, whether it’s from your screen following a particular amount of time or when you’ve lost a certain amount of money in trading. Don’t indulge in revenge trading after a series of losing trades, as this will worsen the situation and wipe out whatever funds are left.

If it happens, give yourself a whole day to reflect on your current victory or defeat. Try to devote a fixed time frame each day to monitoring the prices and volumes (plotted as a chart pattern to indicate the trend) and pursue the next trade. To think things through, just step away from your computer.

In this manner, you may devote the remaining hours of your day to more important pursuits, such as devoting time to those you care about or pursuing a personal interest.

My Thoughts:

I’ve found that The Passion Paradox, which I consumed reading throughout my continued trading adventure, has absolutely superb insights into comprehending what drives people.

Investing time and money into trading typically requires a significant personal commitment. Due to the large risks involved, traders often find themselves unable to pull away. I don’t feel ashamed stating I was once one of them.

After some thought and consideration, I concluded that when I initially began trading, I was emotionally traumatized by it. Earlier on, had I been more self-aware, I may have been able to pull myself out of my funk with more deliberate action.

Personally, I think I might have gained a lot from it. Just avoid getting caught up in the pressure of trying to outdo other traders. Instead, take pride in your progress toward trading mastery and that is what Harmonious Passion is.