Discipline is like a mountain, it is either an upclimb harsh slope when one is beginning or it becomes downslope as years pass, you develop rhythm and for the most part to just get tired of doing extra work, and anytime you stray from your rules you are doing extra work. You want to become numb almost to whole day, just making cogs, stick a piece into molding machine and pick it up, then next and next, you want it to become boring cause then you have all the answers to problems as they come up. When excitement comes is where you don't have that answer and usually it is a costly question. Seldom will questions be profitable. Discipline is not something you can teach, it is not even my words to tell you how we do it, it has to be painful, cause we only change cause of pain, eventually you just give up and accept. Back testing consistently is only way to make changes, you don't see a doctor who was trained in the 1970s to be practicing the same way today, his career been nothing but practicing to become better and adding new when it warrants, traders are no different.
Was exhausted yesterday to mark up. Took most of them , back test is best way if they work for you. I don't care for Fridays, but that not part of rules to stop. Starbucks time.
1 big mistake/ forced trade near EOD. Prior to that trades just not working. Not getting follow through. Action seemed very slow so will have to watch for that tomorrow too. -16 on last trade which put me at -50 ticks today. -34 I'm OK with. -50 not too pleased. I expect if the market provides the opportunities this week that i'll do fine. As always just need to keep reminding myself to be patient.
No major mistakes. Minor mistake ? A bad price read on one entry. Not concerned about that really. It happens. More focused on my discipline which was fine today. Boring day, even the winners. Not moving my targets. Yea. Unfortunately the later session trades were not working so gave back some profits. + 10 ticks today
Slow day. 2 trades in NQ before and just after CL inventory report. CL not a lot of opportunities for my method. Good patience avoiding trading but still had a few losers. Last half hour CL had a nice move. I missed an entry by a few seconds then waited for a proper PB entry. Last trade exited too soon. Took quick profit on possible FBO rather than give more time. That was a mistake. Still not trading flawlessly but the major things I'm getting right; patience , valid entries and not moving target. The latter being my primary focus this week. +2 CL; + 9.75 NQ
Lost focus and didn't realize it. CL looked kind of range bound straight off so I focused on NQ today. Overall I feel confident in what I'm doing which then I find leads to complacency on my part. I ignore context i should not be missing. Talking out price action helps. Need to do that. Over traded in some chop. No self awareness today. Not quite sure how that happens some days. Obviously, not too pleased. The cycle is I do poorly, get motivated and properly focused, do well, become complacent, unfocused then get motivated , focused again. That cycle ends today. -21.5 NQ pts
Be sure to have your action steps ready or the cycle will not end. Here are a couple of the action steps I used (and still use) to help me stay focused and avoid making common mistakes (these applied to my specific problems, by the way, they're not necessarily universal): > If I feel discomfort about placing an order for a valid signal, immediately place the order, stand up and look away from the screen. All my valid setups felt uncomfortable at first (and to be honest most of them still do). Stepping away/looking away disrupts my tendency to start thinking while trading which often results in exiting perfectly good trades without a signal to exit. Just this morning, price came within 1 tick of my stop loss on a trade before turning and running 1 tick through my profit target. I was tempted to exit prematurely for a scratch, then for a smaller loss prior to the further MAE that occurred because I thought I was smarter than my own trading plan. Standing up, looking away and then looking back at the charts made it clear that there was absolutely no reason to exit the trade unless my stop loss was hit. After all this time, it's just as uncomfortable as it was long ago. If I stare at the screen once positioned, that "thinking while trading" habit tries to exert itself again... > If the price action is choppy, narrow range, mixed signals, etc., talk out loud about it as if teaching a class. This helps me stay focused for the "tell" which always comes prior to decent directional move. Otherwise, I tend to get distracted, then catch price running and I'm tempted to chase, instead of remaining patient for the next signal.