Fairly obvious really, but the thing about obsessions is they creep up on you.

A friend of mine does affiliate marketing – 14 hours a day at a screen, fixing up links, building a hundred or so rubbish web sites each designed to earn a dollar a day – so it mounts up, but it is a seriously brute force approach – and then there’s a heck of a lot of stress when a hundred sites go down at once. There are times, frankly, when he’s not a fun person to be near. He’s going to sacrifice a few luxuries like a social life, decent blood pressure readings, make his money and retire at 40. Maybe….

The simple fact is, jaded, fatigued, your decision-making is not going to be better. There’s no argument against that.

And the other major problem with getting obsessed – it’s so easy to get locked into the short-term, and be liable to lose sight of the bigger picture – give yourself 20 minutes at the start of a day, with a coffee, just pondering strategy, re-examine a few preconceptions you may have gotten into and generally getting the mind clear.

Everyone is different – we vary in how much we can concentrate and dedicate our time to a single activity. You may be a workaholic (but not everyone who says they are is best off doing this) or you may already have realised that a few days off, and few less hours a day, with leisure involved, will suit you all the better.

• You won’t be damaging your abilities as a pro trader if you get them a rest and recharge the old batteries…
• Definitely don’t get into the frame of mind where you start to think that other traders must be stealing a march on you just because you’ve left them to it for a few hours.
• Forex is a lonely business. Get out and about – even, I guess, if that out and about is around the internet, checking out what other people are doing.
• At least the forex market does, effectively, have a weekend – make use of it.

So avoid the fixations, compulsions that often seem to go with the territory. An effective trader is a well-balanced trader, who knows when to take time off.

One Response to “Don’t get obsessed with Forex.”

1. Forex » Don’t get obsessed with Forex. says:

   January 13, 2009 at 10:52 am

   [...] Fairly obvious really, but the thing about obsessions is they creep up on you. [...]

   Reply