Why Do the 90% Keep Sticking Their Hand in the Fire?!

One of two questions that I have been seeking answers to:

“Why is it 90% of traders keep repeating behaviours that they know will fail?”

Perhaps, just perhaps, Brene Brown has come up with the answer. Who is Brene Brown?  She is a research professor at the University of Houston and author bestselling books. More importantly for traders, she has spent more than a decade studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity and shame.

So, what does your research have to do with trading failure?

Plenty.

Let’s start with what we know.

We are hardwired as humans to:

• Move away from pain and towards pleasure.
• Move away from uncertainty and towards the known.
• We create stories to fill the void of knowledge, especially when it comes to our lives.

Armed with this knowledge, let’s examine the budding trader’s journey.

He starts with dreams of unparalleled success and how easy it is. If he is unlucky, his first trades will confirm the belief. Then reality sets in, trading is not as easy as it seems – the losses mount, and instead of success, he is now facing failure.

How do most newbies deal with this pain?

The initial response is to:

• deny (it’s a temporary thing),
• suppress (pretend the losses have not happened), or
• reframe (I’ve learnt my lesson, success is around the corner).

As failure continues, the trader experiences shame. She then starts to blame either herself or others (the courses taken, the books read or “the whole system is rigged against me“). Whatever her response (her choice), the one thing she does do is create a story that supports it.

But, since the story is nothing more than a justification of his prior actions, he gets locked into the cycle of repeating the same behaviour. And, with the same behaviour, he continually experiences the same results. Failure, shame, blame. Ultimately, it all gets too much, and most traders give up on their dreams.

So is this our predestined fate? To try, to fail, to surrender our dreams? No, there is a solution. I have merely outlined the problem.

The solution? I’ll deal with that tomorrow………………………………

The post Why Do the 90% Keep Sticking Their Hand in the Fire?! appeared first on Ray Barros’ Blog for Trading Success.