Read Time: 5 Minutes

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I was starting to feel burnt out with trading and everything that goes into it - the studying, the chart analysis, the journaling, the stress of seeing a trade go red, all of it. 

I was able to temporarily alleviate my feelings of burnout by taking a few days off trading, but that appears to be a short-term fix because those same feelings of burnout have begun to creep back into the picture.

I don't know for sure, but I have to assume that many new traders go through this experience; and how could you not? 

As a new trader, you put in thousands of hours of work. You study candlesticks and chart patterns, you backtest trade setups, you study charts for hours each day, and you relentlessly analyze and journal your trades. You do all of this work and in return, you get a big ol' pile of nothing. 

If you talk to any successful trader, they'll tell you that you should expect it to take 1-3 years of hard work to become a consistently profitable trader. They'll tell you that there are three stages of trading. 

1. Consistently losing money
2. Consistently breaking even (this is where I am)
3. Consistently making money

I was told all of this when I started trading but I thought to myself, "Yeah right. I'll outwork everybody and get to profitability within a couple of months. No big deal."

What I didn't realize is that you have to experience all of the trading pitfalls firsthand before you can become a successful trader. There are no shortcuts or elevator rides to the top. 

You have to feel the pain that comes with overtrading or revenge trading so that you know not to do it in the future. You have to experience your first big winning streak and then you have to give all of those profits back so that you can understand the dangers of trading with overconfidence. You have to enter trades too early and too late so that you can learn how to snipe entries with precision, patience, and confidence. You have to go to battle with your feelings of fear and greed so that you can learn to trade without emotion. 

You have to experience all of these painful emotions so that you can acquire the knowledge and mental strength needed to become a consistently profitable trader. 

But how do you get yourself to keep going when you don't get the results you want or expect? How do you push through the long hours and the painful learning experiences? How do you stay motivated long enough to see the payoff at the end?

I don't have the answers to these questions but I'm actively exploring them because I feel like I'm at a pivotal stage of my trading journey. I'm at this ultra-frustrating stage where I feel like I have the skills and knowledge needed to succeed, yet I continue to be a break-even trader. For months, I've been stuck here and I can see how easy it would be to throw in the towel at this stage.

But that's not me. I'm going to keep grinding. 

Step one is overcoming my feelings of burnout.

Taking a break from trading didn't appear to be the answer so I'm going to try something else.

I'm going to attempt to change the way my brain releases dopamine. Here's a video where Dr. Andrew Huberman explains how we can attach our internal reward system (AKA dopamine release) to the process of doing a hard thing rather than to the reward or result that comes after doing the hard thing.

We don't want the dopamine release when we finish a workout or when we look in the mirror and see those 6-pack abs. We want the dopamine release when we're pushing through the most grueling part of the workout.

We don't want the dopamine release when we close out a winning trade or when have a big month. We want it when it's the end of the day and we want to quit but instead we decide to keep studying the charts or analyzing our trades.

If we can teach ourselves to fall in love with the process, we'll be able to stick around long enough to achieve the success we ultimately desire.