Exposure Therapy for Traders: How to Beat Your Worst Impulses

🟣 Tradetopia Field Notes — Issue #27 - September 8, 2025

You don’t beat bad habits by avoiding them. You beat them by facing them until they lose their power.

The Impulse vs. You

Every trader has that one weakness.

• Moving stops.

• Revenge trading.

• Overtrading after a loss.

And in the moment, it feels unbearable not to act on it. You think: If I just get back in, I’ll feel better.

That urge is real but here’s the thing: the way you beat it isn’t by avoiding it. It’s by facing it until it loses its charge.

The Stop Loss Story

I knew this trader back in 2017. His problem was simple: he couldn’t stop moving his stop loss.

Every time price got close, he’d slide it back. And back. And back. Until eventually the account was gone or he lucked into a breakeven.

One day I caught him staring at his phone. Just locked in. I asked, “What are you doing?”

He goes: “I’m watching it hit my stop.”

Price tags him out. He nods. “Better than ever.”

That’s when I realized: the only way he was going to break the habit was to force himself to experience it enough times that the fear died out.

And honestly? He was right.

Exposure Therapy for Traders

This is the same principle psychologists use for phobias. Afraid of elevators? You ride them until it’s boring. Afraid of spiders? You sit with them until your brain stops firing alarms.

Trading works the same way.

You want to stop moving stops? Watch them get hit. Again and again. Track it. Feel the sting. Let it burn.

Eventually, you’ll realize: the pain was never the stop loss. The pain was your resistance to it.

How to Train It

Here’s how to put exposure therapy into practice as a trader:

1. Pick your impulse. Identify the thing you can’t stop doing (moving stops, forcing trades, chasing).

2. Face it directly. The next time it shows up, don’t avoid it. Watch yourself not press the button. Literally stare at it.

3. Record it. Journal it, tally it, track it. Every time you win against the impulse, mark it down.

4. Repeat until numb. Over time, the charge fades. The same way a song loses impact after you’ve played it 100 times.

Final Thoughts

Discipline isn’t about avoiding your demons. It’s about staring them down until they lose power.

If you want to stop sabotaging yourself, you need more exposure, not less.

Because here’s the truth:

The faster you can make pain boring, the faster you become the trader who wins by default.

Filed: [September 2025] | Location: Behind the Screens [Cartagena, Colombia 🇨🇴]