Education Hub - Learn to Trade, page-274

Is Your Self-Esteem Tied To Your Account Equity?

Does your self-esteem rise and fall with your account equity? If so, your probably in for some difficult times ahead with your trading. For some traders, a trade is more than a trade, it can represent how successful they are as a person, how much status they feel, etc.

When your self-concept is closely tied to your trading outcomes the result is a yo-yo effect in terms of your self-esteem and your internal state. And our internal state has a lot to do with how well we trade.
Trading already involves a lot of uncertainty, and tying one’s sense of self-worth to the ups and downs of trading is unnecessarily adding emotional volatility to the picture and is usually not a good idea.

Most traders need to work on being more resilient in the face of disappointment. Trading will always involve disappointments, its part of the territory. A delicate balance between being fully engaged in the trade with a ‘watchful curiosity’ and without being overly attached to the outcome, is how many successful traders describe their internal state.

-Andrew Menakar