An Illuminating Note from The Lonely Trader

Received an email from The Lonely Trader on my posting Dilemma, and am truly grateful for the insights he's offered. His questions are tough - typical of TLT LOL! My brain muscles are due for some serious workouts anyway....

I can't think of a better place to keep this treasure other than in my personal journal :

Jules, this doesn't seem like a dilemma at all. I don’t think this is a problem of the "commit murder or matrimony" variety. You've been at this for how long, now?...

Were you ever in a tactical situation where you were afraid, but you went ahead with the assignment anyway? And you performed well enough despite those feelings of uncertainty and doubt. You made decisions based on training and practice, right? Sometimes the decisions were sequential and based on conditional situations, and sometimes they were of a higher functional order. But they were part of a cohesive structure. You didn’t understand the nuances until you had enough time to work through them in different contexts. Then as you began to master the nuances, you gained insight into the contexts, and the higher functional analysis became second nature to you…although not every decision was the right one, most were functionally adequate.

In my own experience with this process, the intensity of feelings subsided but the feelings themselves -- uncertainty, doubt, and maybe a little fear -- never disappeared entirely. The more I practice, the easier it is to cope with emotions when making decisions required by the plan and the context.

Can you state clearly what the premises are in the plan and are they valid from an empirical standpoint? And have you defined what the criteria are for determining whether the plan has failed? And have you broken down your plan into component skills that you can practice and evaluate?

Perhaps these bits might help with the feelings of doubt. Perhaps not. In any case, they will help you decide what to *do* as you roll through your trading process, which is really all that matters, right?

Or maybe I'm missing something...?

But I’m not a trading coach, nor am I a professional trader. So there it is.

Cheers