I could vividly remember the first time I placed a trade in the market. Heart pumping anticipation-is how I define it.
Back then, it was less about wanting to profit & more about wanting to be right. This was accompanied with the false presumption that being right meant being profitable.When I say that markets are the best place to tame your EGO…I mean it & I say it with humility!
If there was one thing missing when I first traded live markets, it was fear…since the anticipation had so engulfed it.This fear was soon to make it’s presence known when my first attempted portfolio was down around 30%. Yes, fear had made “thy presence” known. Fortunately, fear caused me to take a break from live trading and study the markets further (I was simultaneously in the last year of a Masters in Biotechnology & Business studies) .
As time passed by & so did I improve my apparent knowledge of markets; I decided to get back into live trading. But it was different this time. I had along an untamed misnomer…& yes you guessed it right-Fear. The fear that caused me to take a step back and refocus. And now that it decided to stay, fear was the one that was causing me to be overcautious; missing on opportunities.
This journey with fear has sure been an enlightening one.Dealing with fear in trading led me to dealing with fear in other aspects of my life. Sometimes these fears could be tracked back to childhood & sometimes not too distant away experiences. Fear as such does not come in a single package. It has a variety of flavors.
I have now come to a point where fear is no longer a misnomer but rather a guiding source.Embracing the fear & knowing that it is only a making of my experiences.So with every new experience (trade placed), whether identical to the past or different, I first feel the fear with a conscious attempt. A positive outcome of feeling the fear- reinforces confidence; while a negative outcome is taken as a lesson. My fear still remains but now it’s tamed (& probably I need it as much as it needs me).
The ideal is to develop a balanced life portfolio as I like to call it…which means a diversification of your fears in various aspects of life by facing them as they present (pun intended).