This is a guest post by George Boncoraglio shared as a post in my Facebook Trading Group. It is reposted here with permission.
I have always told new traders that you should always keep your word. This is a lesson I leaned from the Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation. Most of those people kept their word. In other words, if they made a promise, they kept it irrespective of how they felt about it years later. Today, I find that most of the kids and young adults give lip service and do not adhere to the promises that they make to others. I find this deeply disturbing. I despise this laxity.
Being from Generation X, I stand in the nexus of both old and new ways of understanding and conceptualizing reality. In this case, the older generations proved superior.
How does this apply to trading? Well…a trading plan is a promise that you make to yourself about how you will conduct your financial activities. Most traders do not see it as a promise or you giving your word to yourself; but, you are actually doing just that. If it amounts to nothing more than lip service, then you will fail utterly and painfully!
As mentioned previously, once you give your word or promise, you must keep it irrespective of how you feel. So, thinking along those lines, if you are in a losing streak, you stick to the promises that you made to yourself to follow the rules that you composed in your trading plan or promise to yourself.
A trading plan is not composed for the purpose of exhibitionism but for implementation. However, self-deception is the greatest impediment to progress. Below, are some quotes to assist with illustrating this point:
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
― Soren Kierkegaard
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky
“You can fool yourself, you know. You’d think it’s impossible, but it turns out it’s the easiest thing of all.”
― Jodi Picoult, Vanishing Acts
“People love answers, but only as long as they are the ones who came up with them.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy
So, there you have it. Keep your word to others so that you will have integrity and keep it to yourself so that you can become veracious.
Happy Trading!