Posts Of Interest - Part III: Self Assessment

Since I use Blogger to blog, it makes it very difficult to categorize and sort my posts. This blog is coming up to 200 posts and so I have gone through all my posts and sorted them out into categories that may be of interest to readers.

Over the next couple of weekends, I will be posting "Posts Of Interest", which is simply a collection of posts that I thought would be helpful for readers to see what mistakes I have made (and continue to make), and to get a better idea of how I do things (without having to click through the archives).

Part 1 was entitled "The Way I Trade".
Part 2 was entitled "Trading Principles".
Part 3 is entitled "Self Assessment".
Part 4 is entitled "The NYSE".

This weekend in "Self Assessment" I have collected several posts in which I assess my trading and gives you some insights into my thinking, especially during some of my darkest hours. Some of these posts give a fairly harsh assessment in the way I do things, but I always tried to look to the future and giving up never entered my thoughts.

I have listed the oldest post first and the newest post last. And so, here is my "Self Assessment":

This Blog Should Be Renamed "The Undisciplined Trader" - posted on Mar 29, 2006

• In this post, I reflected on a day in which too many mental errors and bad judgement calls led to a disappointing day
• I describe how I lost focus after several bad trades in a row and ultimately led to a lack of discipline
  

Where's The Missing Piece Of The Puzzle? - posted on May 11, 2006

• In this post I try to explore what I'm doing wrong and what I could be doing differently after several weeks of mediocre performances
• This post was interesting because the very next day I had my very first $1000+ day

The Long And Winding Road - posted on May 23, 2006

• This was posted the day after I had my worst trading day to date and a day in which my confidence level was low - in the post, I tried to keep my head up amidst all the disappointments
  
• The post was written shortly after my first $1000+ day, however after that $1000+ day, I struggled to stay profitable
  

It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times - posted on May 31, 2006

• On the very last trading day of May, I summarized my thoughts of the roller coaster ride that was the month
  
• There were some great moments in May, and there were lots of bad moments, hence the title of the post
  

Coming Away With Something Positive On A Negative Day - posted on Jun 5, 2006

• This was a review of one of my worst trading days in which I had 6 bad trades and managed to lose close to $1000 during the course of the day
• In this post, I tried to look at the day in a positive light and forced myself to identify what went wrong
  

Never Surrender - posted on Aug 3, 2006

• This was posted on a day when I was ready to give up when I classic song encouraged me to stay and to never surrender
• Though the results were not good, they were much better than before and because I stayed to finish off the trading day
  

I Love The Commute Home - posted on Sept 6, 2006

• Another day and another post in which I reflected upon the terrible trading day
• In this post, I talk about the time to myself that the commute home allowed and what I think about during the 30 minute trip home
  

Dreams - posted on Sept 8, 2006

• After several weeks of poor performances, I took a day to write up this post about my dreams and why I continue to work at this
• In this post, I talk about how dreams and goals can be powerful motivators and how they can give you new life when you feel like giving up
  

Why I'm Not A Good Trader - posted on Oct 5, 2006

• As my trading struggles continued, I took some time to write up this post about my weaknesses and what I was going to do about them
• This was actually a great exercise for myself and I discovered a newfound confidence in what I was doing after this writeup