I lost my confidence... And fought to get it back.

[Mr_Akbar]

I once lost 26% of my portfolio in three short trades, in less than an hour and a half.

It was brutally crushing.
Weeks of hard work gone in the blink of an eye.

But I thought back to when I was just a little kid, learning how to ride a horse at summer camp.

More accurately I remember falling off said horse while trying to learn how to ride it.
And the camp counselor wiping the dirt (and maybe a tear, though I'd never admit it) off my face.

"If you don't get right back on that horse, you never will again." he told me.

And so I did.

But when I got back on the trading horse the next day, something was different. It didn't feel right.
It felt like the charts I was so used to watching, were in a foreign language.

The letters were still the same, but I couldn't read them anymore. Whatever I used to see, whatever strategy I had been using before, it didn't fit.

Something was missing.

I floundered, and I panicked.

Luckily, a good friend and mentor was there to catch me.
Thanks to their wisdom, it became clear to me - there was indeed something missing.

My confidence.

Confidence in my skill, confidence in my ability to control my emotions, confidence in my analysis.
Without that, there was no way that crypto could the salvation I so desperately longed for.

And so I set out to rebuild that confidence, brick by brick.
For the next 30 days, I traded only a completely insignificant amount of money and I documented every last detail.

That helped me control my despair while validating the effectiveness of my strategy.

After rediscovering my groove in those 30 days, I slowly ramped back up to trading real money.

In the end, learning from that experience proved far more valuable than the short term damage to my portfolio.

Have you ever had to experience something extreme to overcome a mental weakness?

[GreatArkansas]

I think most of the beginners on trading felt the same as you and also experienced the same as you. Just like me, in the beginning, especially when I started to trade, I lost almost 50% of my balance in the exchanges.
I decided to stop, but there's one inside of me that pulls me to trade again, then, I started to learn and study, research and ask.

Just what you said, once you learnt something, everything will be easy for you, like you are familiar to everything that you do.

 Just always keep in your mind, there is no easy money, it comes for hard work and learning.

[leowonderful]

I typically risk no more than 5% of my trading balance to ensure drawdowns aren't too bad most of the time, and I've been fortunate enough to have not been down 30% at any time so far, but there have been times in the past when I wasn't using good risk management where I was down greater than 30%. Those times were actually a blessing to me, as I was trading a smaller amount of money than I am now and those losses made me take another look at TA and risk management which has now taken me much further than I would've been if I didn't lose.

As for gaining confidence, there's a number of ways to do that, but one of the simpler things is just to look at the brighter side. There's a good chance you're only looking at the negatives if you've lost your confidence.

[nydiacaskey01]

Same thing that happened to me 2 years ago after the great China fake news that dropped all Altcoin prices including Bitcoin. After that incident, I seldom trade and if I ever trade, the amount at risk is very low. Its a learning experience and it costs us a lot to learn from our mistakes but it teaches us to be more cautious at every move that we make in trading.

[Vaskiy]

There is nothing to do with confidence in trading. We don't know on what direction the market is going to move. Just can predict and open the buy and sell orders. Should not go for immediate profiting out of confidence. Here being courageous to spend is the must. Even if some thing happens away from the predictions just take a break, analyze and proceed further. This will make you limit your losing.

[Japinat]

I like explanation in the picture and that is really the process if a person wants to be successful.
We keep learning everyday, accept our mistakes and improve it.

I can also testify that to my personal experience, I'm a kind of person who does not easily give up in challenges, and trading IMO
is a challenge, if we want to be successful, we have to accept that challenges and always believe that quitters never win.

[semobo]

Once you lost the confidence in your mind then it will definitely very hard to get back in your life again but if you try some effort to make it possible then you will feel better with confidence in this field also very quickly.

[crwth]

I recently lost a lot in my trading account, the portfolio that I was counting on that could generate me more money than I could hope for, but it didn't work out. I had to check out why it happened. I kept on losing money, and all I did was the wrong decisions.

I'm still waiting for the moment to have the experience to make things right, like the post by @GreatArkansas. It's a great thing to understand, but being attached to the feelings won't make the right ones. You have to be strict for yourself, and unluckily, I didn't follow on it. It's the saddest part.

I'm hoping to get back everything that I have lost, and maybe more discipline is needed. I have lost hope, but I know I shouldn't be that down, I should pick myself up and recover.

[NavI_027]

Short but quite inspirational story. You've made the right decision to continue walking on the path you've chosen. The trail would not definitely as smooth as you imagined but I know that it is all worth it when you succeed. Pain and losses were not pure miseries, actually they are blessing in disguise because they make us stronger investor and a person in general. There's a saying "What doesn't kill you make you stronger" .

I also lost a lot of money before (around $140 worth of btc) and I was so very upset because I'm facing a financial crisis that time. That amount already means a lot to me and I lost it for being greedy. Fortunately, I was able to survive my 4th year college even without it and here I am still trusting to crypto. I already learned a lesson and I'm doing my best for me to not commit the same mistake again.

I like explanation in the picture and that is really the process if a person wants to be successful.

The anime character used in the picture was already enough to represenst what OP's situation is like. If you are familiar with One Punch Man, he (Saitama) is the protagonist of it. He is just a weak normal guy at the beginning but started to dedicate his life on training and now become an invincible hero. His enemies only need to get one punch in order to be defeated .

[Kemarit]

Once you lost the confidence in your mind then it will definitely very hard to get back in your life again but if you try some effort to make it possible then you will feel better with confidence in this field also very quickly.

That is why the whole crypto trading also involves a lot of mental toughness. You can't just lost your confidence here, otherwise how can you get back. As I have been preaching here, crypto trading is a journey, a lot of bumps along the way and if you don't know your way specially standing and getting back again they you will be lost along the way.

To the OP, at least your mind didn't give up like majority of us. When they see their portfolio down, they start to bitch around the community and even blame everyone except themselves. Just keep fighting those negativity and I'm sure you can slowly gain back what you have lost. Again, this is a journey and not a marathon.

[Herbert2020]

the problem with this market is that it can give a lot of the newcomers a false sense of confidence specially during certain periods of time where it is easy to trade. you just have to close your eyes and select an altcoin to make profit. for example 2017. that year ruined a lot of people and emptied their pockets because they thought they were expert traders just because they made some lucky bets on the market. then when the actual market showed its face and they started losing money by making the same "bets" they slowly realized their "confidence" was a sham.
only those who learn from their mistakes can come back to the market and continue on.

[omonuyak]

Your experience is an encouragement to those that are new in this market and have not been affected by the brutality of the cryptocurrency trading. It happens to me sometime back when I came into trading for the first time. I was making gained from the beginning until a single trade wipeout out my capital and gained and I have to stay away from trade for over two months before coming back again but this time extremely careful.

[Maslate]

Your experience is an encouragement to those that are new in this market and have not been affected by the brutality of the cryptocurrency trading. It happens to me sometime back when I came into trading for the first time. I was making gained from the beginning until a single trade wipeout out my capital and gained and I have to stay away from trade for over two months before coming back again but this time extremely careful.

A mistake is a thing we can't simply escape from, anyone is subject to have it but it has an advantage for us. We learn from those mistakes and could give us a way to find a solution for not recurring again. And base on my experience, trading is difficult to look at but if we understand it and take control of our self, it everything will be fine.

[cryptothreads]

Your experience is an encouragement to those that are new in this market and have not been affected by the brutality of the cryptocurrency trading. It happens to me sometime back when I came into trading for the first time. I was making gained from the beginning until a single trade wipeout out my capital and gained and I have to stay away from trade for over two months before coming back again but this time extremely careful.

A mistake is a thing we can't simply escape from, anyone is subject to have it but it has an advantage for us. We learn from those mistakes and could give us a way to find a solution for not recurring again. And base on my experience, trading is difficult to look at but if we understand it and take control of our self, it everything will be fine.

Each participant in this market has many different mistakes and this is inevitable in this risk market. I think finding a solution is the only way we can survive in the bear market because every day is a survival war so you can make the most profit but if without real knowledge you will never win this market . Personally I holding a lot of good coins and so far my profit has been very small but I will continue to be patient with this market in the near future.

[Jating]

Your experience is an encouragement to those that are new in this market and have not been affected by the brutality of the cryptocurrency trading. It happens to me sometime back when I came into trading for the first time. I was making gained from the beginning until a single trade wipeout out my capital and gained and I have to stay away from trade for over two months before coming back again but this time extremely careful.

A mistake is a thing we can't simply escape from, anyone is subject to have it but it has an advantage for us. We learn from those mistakes and could give us a way to find a solution for not recurring again. And base on my experience, trading is difficult to look at but if we understand it and take control of our self, it everything will be fine.

Each participant in this market has many different mistakes and this is inevitable in this risk market. I think finding a solution is the only way we can survive in the bear market because every day is a survival war so you can make the most profit but if without real knowledge you will never win this market . Personally I holding a lot of good coins and so far my profit has been very small but I will continue to be patient with this market in the near future.

Everyone make mistakes here, so I'm sure all of us at some point experience this kind of feeling. We lost our confidence and we suffer depression and afraid not to trade again because we lost a lot. But that is life so we need to face the consequences of our actions.

And as we mature we learn new things and experience is the best teacher. Learn from our past mistakes and don't let emotions takes over, take control, that is the key.

[ikicha]

Only 26%, I think you are new at here. I and other people got more than 90% lose from the market with a lot of shitcoin, ICO and other coins. Welcome to the club, we are archive a lot of lose from trading.

[kolbalish]

I once lost 26% of my portfolio in three short trades, in less than an hour and a half.

It was brutally crushing.
Weeks of hard work gone in the blink of an eye.

But I thought back to when I was just a little kid, learning how to ride a horse at summer camp.

More accurately I remember falling off said horse while trying to learn how to ride it.
And the camp counselor wiping the dirt (and maybe a tear, though I'd never admit it) off my face.

"If you don't get right back on that horse, you never will again." he told me.

And so I did.

But when I got back on the trading horse the next day, something was different. It didn't feel right.
It felt like the charts I was so used to watching, were in a foreign language.

The letters were still the same, but I couldn't read them anymore. Whatever I used to see, whatever strategy I had been using before, it didn't fit.

Something was missing.

I floundered, and I panicked.

Luckily, a good friend and mentor was there to catch me.
Thanks to their wisdom, it became clear to me - there was indeed something missing.

My confidence.

Confidence in my skill, confidence in my ability to control my emotions, confidence in my analysis.
Without that, there was no way that crypto could the salvation I so desperately longed for.

And so I set out to rebuild that confidence, brick by brick.
For the next 30 days, I traded only a completely insignificant amount of money and I documented every last detail.

That helped me control my despair while validating the effectiveness of my strategy.

After rediscovering my groove in those 30 days, I slowly ramped back up to trading real money.

In the end, learning from that experience proved far more valuable than the short term damage to my portfolio.

Have you ever had to experience something extreme to overcome a mental weakness?

Same things also happened with me but the percentage was huge more than half for me. But still I have some hope in crypto and I didn't withdraw my assets.

However, if you lost your confidence,it will be hard to get it back because it's an abstract things. Once we lost, it rarely back to us.

[harizen]

Treat mistakes as a good foundation in building strong trading experienced.

Without those mistakes, losses, regrets, being crashed, being wrecked, etc. we will not know how to deal properly of al the trading problems we will encounter in the future. Even professional traders today experienced losses during their newbie days and up to now. But that losing experienced able to guide them to create a better and more effective strategy in the future.

If at some point that mistakes happen regularly and continuously over and over again for a "long period of time", without establishing a bounce-back win between those losses, then maybe trading is not really fit for them or still lack of seriousness on that profession.

[shield132]

OP there is no need to post with texts increased in size.
It's good and congrats that you get everything on top. Without fall you can't rise. You did what people advice here, learnt on mistakes.
In overall such threads are always welcome, there are a lot of people who fail in trading, such threads really boost positive feelings and let us know what people who fail in trade aren't alone and there is a chance to learn on mistakes, it's like a motivation.
Thanks and wish you all the best.

[kingpin4321]

Confidence may not directly be a factor to success in trading, but it can indirectly play a part, when one is confident about something, in one way or the other, you tend to do that thing correctly and smartly, if one takes away panic and uncertainty, applying all the methodologies learnt as well as imputing confident ideas, with luck on your side, such trade would be successful. People should be encouraged to eliminate fear and boldly trade cryptocurrencies.