Burnout in trading
Hey everyone, have you ever experienced this situation? You want to trade, but you just don’t have the motivation or feel too lazy to get into trading. Normally, you might really enjoy trading and watching the charts a lot, but lately, you don’t even want to look at the charts anymore. I’m not sure if you’ve faced this problem before, but if you’re feeling burnt out from trading, what should you do? I believe some of you have probably experienced this at some point. So today, let’s listen to what I have to share—maybe it can help solve your trading burnout and help you find your motivation again.
Burnout or losing motivation is a normal thing that can happen to anyone in any field—whether you’re an athlete, singer, actor, student, office worker, or even just doing daily activities. You can lose motivation from exercising, playing games, self-improvement, or even trading. Simply put, burnout can happen with anything.
The symptoms of burnout usually include not wanting to do anything, feeling bored or lazy, just wanting to lie down, and feeling tired. For example, when exercising, you might have a goal to get in shape or have six-pack abs, but after working out for a while, you might get bored or lazy. This could be because exercising is tiring, requires a lot of discipline, and takes time to see results. That’s why burnout can happen. We know that if we keep going, it will be good for us in the long run, but still, we just feel too lazy to do it.
Even in work, sometimes doing the same repetitive tasks over and over can make us lose motivation. It might be because the job is not exciting, just doing the same things without any challenge to our abilities, which makes us bored and burnt out. On the other hand, jobs that require a lot of thinking or creativity can also cause burnout. When we can’t come up with ideas, it can lead to poor work output, and sometimes this makes us not want to work at all. If we take too long of a break, when we come back, we might find ourselves lacking motivation to continue.
First, you might need to ask yourself why you are feeling burnt out. For example, it could be because you’ve been losing a lot, or you keep trading in the wrong direction, or you can’t control your emotions and stay patient. If you know how to manage risk well, these things probably wouldn’t bother you so much.
First of all, I want you to understand that trading should be viewed with a long-term perspective rather than a short-term one. Especially if you’re a beginner just entering the market, being impatient and rushing will only lead to failure. I have a little story to share with you as a small food for thought.
An example from a family.
There was a family with three children: the eldest, the middle, and the youngest. One day, their mother passed away and left an inheritance of 5 million baht to each of the three children. All three siblings shared the same goal and perspective to invest the 5 million baht their mother left them. However, none of them had any knowledge, so they had to start learning first.
Each of them had a different approach to learning. The youngest was impulsive and impatient, eager to start right away. So, they only studied briefly and jumped into investing immediately. If lucky, they might succeed. But of course, with such little research, disappointment was inevitable. The youngest sibling kept losing money because they didn’t study enough before entering the market.
The eldest sibling was more cautious and needed to be sure before investing because they didn’t want to waste money like the youngest. So, the eldest kept studying—reading books, taking courses from experts, and continuously gaining knowledge. They also kept the money their mother left them safely in the bank.
The middle sibling was curious and somewhat cautious. They studied while also starting to invest. They had some losses and some gains and continued like that over time.
After two years passed, the youngest sibling, who was impatient and studied very little before jumping straight into investing, had almost lost all the money their mother left them and hadn’t learned anything except for the losses, due to insufficient knowledge about investing.
As for the eldest sibling, as mentioned, they were cautious and didn’t want to lose money like the youngest. So, they studied a lot but still kept the money in the bank and hadn’t actually invested it yet.
Cut to the middle sibling, who studied while actually investing in the market. Of course, this sibling experienced both disappointments and successes, which is natural. But over the past two years, they gained both knowledge and experience, unlike the other siblings. The youngest only had a rough idea and invested right away, so when they faced failure, they just tried again without reflecting on their mistakes. The eldest kept waiting until they felt fully ready before taking action—they had knowledge but no experience because they never actually entered the market. Meanwhile, the middle sibling combined real investing with learning. Whenever things didn’t go well, they would review their mistakes and find ways to fix them, which gave them both knowledge and experience.
So how does this story relate to feeling burned out from trading? What I want to say is that we should act like the middle sibling—learn, fall, and find our own mistakes in order to come back stronger. If we give up, it means everything we’ve worked for will go to waste. If we already have a goal to succeed in this field, no matter how difficult the obstacles are, we have to push through. Just like someone who sets a goal to conquer Mount Everest—they know it’s risky, and many people never make it to the summit, but because they have a clear goal, they strive to achieve it regardless of the challenges they face.
Trading or investing in anything should be viewed with a long-term mindset. If you feel burned out or tired, it’s okay to take a break—but make sure you come back quickly. Don’t let laziness or burnout take control of you. You can try thinking the way I do: I see difficult things I encounter as challenges. If we can overcome them, we level up and become stronger.
Or look at it this way—imagine the chart is your life. When you start trading, your life chart begins to move upward. The times when you’re tired, burned out, or discouraged might be like a sideways trend. But even during that phase, you have to lift yourself up and keep going.
Because if we give up and stop fighting, the chart of our life—which may have been on an upward trend—could start turning downward instead. And that wouldn’t be good, right? On the days we mess up, we need to bounce back quickly and look at where we went wrong. Since we’ve chosen to walk this path, we have to see it through.
For example, think of a runner—if they fall or make a mistake during a race, they wouldn’t just stay down. They’d find a way to get back up and return to the track as quickly as possible. Otherwise, everything they trained and prepared for would go to waste.
To sum it up—if you’re feeling burned out from trading, one way to deal with it is to simply take a break. Stop thinking about trading altogether for a while and go do something else. Don’t dwell on thoughts like “I shouldn’t have done that” or “If only I had done it differently.” What’s done is done—you can’t change the past. What you can do is reset, get back up, and move forward.
Because staying stuck in negative emotions for too long won’t help you grow. If you’ve entered the world of investing or trading with the goal of succeeding, don’t let obstacles like this stop you. In fact, this might just be a test—to see whether trading is truly for you or not.
If you’ve made it this far, I want to send you encouragement. I hope you get through the tough times quickly. Keep going!
