How To Overcome Greed And Envy

Almost every trader that I’ve spoken to knows that greed can really mess up with one’s account, but none of them seems to be getting over their greed. I thought of putting up this blog post because I understand how challenging this can be. I have suffered from the same and I can now share a few tips on how you can overcome it. With most traders, greed starts as envy and progresses to greed that you can’t control. Don’t worry though, I overcame it and you can definitely overcome it. My mentees and I gave it a name, we call it “Tom’s tendencies”

What exactly is greed?

According to its definition, greed is a selfish want for something beyond one’s need. Greed is when you are unable to control the urge to keep on trading even when you’ve actually exceeded your daily target. You just keep wanting more and more until you give away all your daily profits at the end of the day plus half of your capital or even all of it.

How does greed start?

When you don’t treat your trading account as your personal affair but share it with everyone who gives you a hint that they also trade. I know this because that is how my own greed started during my early days of trading. I used to follow every page as long as I saw the word “Forex”. To me, the word had an ability to create all sorts of unrealistic expectations. You cannot blame me though because almost all the groups I joined portrayed it as the easiest way to make millions spending just few minutes on your smart phone. This girl right here wanted to make it big fast and quick just so she can also fit in with other children. Little did she know that she was about to face a long and rocky journey ahead of her.

You know when you follow every Forex group that you come across, you meet some traders who are pure gamblers but because it is easier to follow a bad trend than to do the right thing, you are likely to mess up your own trading plan and follow none of it. When you see other traders posting their screen shots showing their profits and lot sizes making you feel very envious and end up following their footsteps, neglecting your own trading plan in the process.

The best thing that I’ve ever done for my trading journey was to remove myself from all those groups. It helped me to focus on my own account (which was very small at that time) and my trading plan. Yep, all the noise was filtered and I could focus (which is what I needed anyway).I really had no business increasing my Lot size like I used to. It was all because I was envying other traders and my envy was soon turned into greed. All that got me was nothing but pain and losses. Margin call was the order of the day and it was a normal thing to me. Stop the envy, focus , focus and focus even more without adding unnecessary pressure to yourself. Forget about your friends, they are not contributing any cent to your trading account akere (sorry I got tempted to use my favorite word,please allow me to)

Accept Your Account As it Is

By accepting your account as it is, I mean that you need to understand that if you only invested $500 in your trading account you may not be able to make the same returns as someone who invested $5000. You also need to accept that there may be some restrictions in terms of the financial instruments that you can trade. You may wish to trade Brnt Crude oil , DAX or other stock indices but only to find out that they are too expensive for your account and you can’t afford to trade them, accept that.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with not trading all the financial instruments that you see on your market watch. Actually, you can even do just fine trading one currency pair. Relax and accept your account size it is and treat it accordingly. One of the realities of trading is that your earning potential is highly dependent to your start up capital (I know someone might just stop reading right here because the comforting lies sound sweeter than the reality/truth). The reality can be very unpleasant. Work out your own trading plan, do not just do that nje (my favorite word again) follow it without compromise.

Is It Difficult To Overcome Greed?

Anything, I mean anything is possible when your mind is made up. Make up your own mind and you can easily overcome greed. I did and you can do it too. Thank you for stopping by, kindly share the post with your peers.