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This is a classic symptom of poor psychological control and also one of the hardest to overcome.
As mentioned earlier this is usually manifested as jumping into a trade without any valid reason for doing so.
The main emotion at work here is greed because you are usually scared that you are about to miss a really nice move particularly if you have been waiting for it all week. The reality is that you get a really low probability entry where price can do anything.
At least when you are trading from confirmed confluences of support and resistance the price action is very predictable: it will either bounce off the entry level or ignore it, either way you know whether your right or wrong within a few moments whereas entering in a no man’s land will probably cause you all sorts of emotional turmoil as price dances around, taking you in and out of profit for several hours and even causing you to start having doubts about your system.
Another thing that can happen, again damaging your mindset is that price will come back and hit your stop taking you out of the trade for a loss….only to then almost immediately take off in your expected direction. This can be extremely frustrating, often leading you to doubt your method and start chasing new and better systems.
So what can you do to help with this?
Well it’s a very good habit to keep a diary and on the first page write out the rules of your trading system, so that you are clear on things such as, entering the market, and managing your trades.
Once you do this you can clearly see your trading plan and rules, and therefore make sure you stick to them.
The next thing that you should do each day is write down each trade that you actually take. Before you take it write down why you are taking it and why that set up is the best one according to your method.
At the end of your trading day write down a summary of how the day went and whatever you did during the day, whether it was take two trades or not take any at all write it down, but more importantly why you did it, and whether it was in line with your method.
If it was all in line with your plan, whatever happened, win or lose, you can consider it a good trading day.
If it wasn’t in line with your plan, write down how you will improve and do better the next day, and then focus on following that through.
I still keep my diary to this day, as it helps me stay focused because no matter how much you follow something if you stop reinforcing that knowledge you will eventually slip into bad habits.
The trading diary is definitely a key to overcoming your discipline issues.
Next: Unrealistic Expectations