Seven Deadly Sins of Trading

I've been having issues lately with closing out positions before they reach their profit objective or stop loss, no doubt the product of fear.  When I first started trading, I heard other traders mention the words fear and greed and laughed at their use in this context.  I'm not laughing anymore because there is no question how these emotions affect your trading in a negative way.  Is it in my or your best interest to suppress these emotions or to recognize, identify, and face these emotions?  I think it's time for me to read Douglas' book again, Trading in the Zone where he constantly reinforces the necessity of eliminating emotions from trading.  

I came across another book where the author lists the 7 deadly sins of trading (Overcoming 7 Deadly Sins of Trading by Ruth Barrons Roosevelt).  It is quite accurate but how do these emotions affect my trading now?

1. Fear - like I've just mentioned, fear plays an integral part in my trading, something I must  fix.
2. Greed - I don't feel like this is a problem for me right now.  I believe that I have realistic   objectives that do not contribute to this.
3. Recklessness - I think I do get a touch of recklessness in my trading from time to time, like getting rid of my stops on Friday.  This is something that can be very destructive so I cannot dismiss 1 episode as unimportant.
4. Perfectionism - I'm not trying to be perfect.  I understand that losses are part of trading.
5. Pride - Are you attaching your ego to each event or situation?  I don't think I am.
6. Anger - I think I can sometimes get angry at things that I did when I know that I shouldn't have.
7. Impatience - Definitely guilty of this.

I've got some work to do. 

I did overcome the fear this morning and let a trade breath a bit by flat out leaving my computer for an hour.  I came back to 90 pips of profit. 

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Trading in the Zone: The 5 Fundamental Truths

I finished reading "Trading in the Zone" by Mark Douglas yesterday.  For those of you who haven’t heard of it or read it, I would highly recommend it.  Douglas doesn’t offer any specific strategies to becoming a successful trader but advises that the first step to becoming a successful trader is to accept the psychological realities of trading. 

A lot of what he advises, I have consciously accepted but the goal is for my subconscious to fully accept it so that it actually becomes part of who I am.  Our beliefs are engrained in our minds and a lot of these beliefs don’t allow us to think like successful traders.  The process by which we can start to think like successful traders involves "deactivating" these engrained beliefs and activate new beliefs.  The new belief will take form and become part of our subconscious.

He mentions the importance of the 5 fundamental truths which we must train our minds to accept:

1.    Anything can happen
2.    You don’t need to know what is going to happen next in order to make money
3.    There is a random distribution between wins and losses for any given set of variables that define an edge
4.    An edge is nothing more than an indication of a higher probability of one thing happening over another
5.    Every moment in the market is unique 

Here are his 7 principles of consistency:

1.    I objectively identify my edges
2.    I predefine the risk of every trade
3.    I completely accept the risk or I am willing to let go of the trade
4.    I act on my edges without reservation or hesitation
5.    I pay myself as the market makes money available to me
6.    I continually monitor my susceptibility for making errors
7.    I understand the absolute necessity of these principles.  I never violate them. 

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