Very good question. a grind means very hard, dull work. If a trader feels that trading is a grind, that trader failed to manage and control his mind and emotion. we need to exercise our mind so as to achieve calm and alert stage. during trading, there should be no negative emotion like a grind. as long as you feel trading is a grind, it means you are not in control of your mind. and your subconscious mind is controlling you. It is virtually impossible to earn money. how to achieve calm alert stage? Some use meditation, some use yoga, chakra, psycho cybernectics, listen to soft music, tap meridian points .... honestly speaking, we have to do it on rather frequent basis, at least once a day for substantial amount of time. Also passion & discipline needed to keep us going. For body builder, they have to eat well, have lots of determination to lift heavy load to build up muscle. Similarly for trader, we need to spend significant amount of time exercising our mind. and honestly , it is not easy to achieve calm alert stage 365 days a year for many many years
IMO ROI anything less than 20% per month is not a professional thing. ROI standards differs business to business mainly based on risk involved. More the risk more the ROI. Stock trading is one of the most riskiest business in the world. Whether you do manual trading or automated trading is not important. If you are trading for 5 years or 15 years is not the question. Is the returns at professional level or not is the real question. Success at a hobby level is not the same as professional level. Since trading skills are unique trader to trader, there are several bench marks and approaches. "Trading is a business. Trading is a business skill. As a trader I am a business man with required business skills.", is the highest of all the approaches.
I had a job once where I observed fish being caught in the saltwater inlet filters of a power station. We couldn't predict when the fish numbers would increase, but every few weeks the numbers would build up to a peak then over a week duration subside again to nothing. During the peak we would have hundreds of fish trapped, all sorts, sharks, rays, big and small, crays... During the peak week I would wander down to the wharves and see large numbers of fish hanging around the wharf piles, so it was a phenomen which covered an area. I think of trading like this, there are dry times and hot times. The dry times far outnumber the hot times. When trading is off the boil, I don't fuss about it. I do other things. When the bite comes on, I load up on positions, make money as fast as possible in the small window then exit and go back to doing other chores.
I am talking about the possibilities here. Theoretically speaking, 1% profit per day (on an average) and twenty trading days per month means 20% ROI. For some traders this may be a reality. No one can prove that it is impossible. Can you Xela ? Every trader is unique and their trading skills are unique. Not all drivers can become Formula one races. Thinking that 20% ROI is not possible is like thinking Formula one racers does not exist. The point is we need to remember there is always one more level of skill for anyone to upgrade, even for a champion. No one can claim his results are the universal benchmark. We are our own benchmarks not for others. Let us not speak like we have already reached the dead end. What is important is whether we are conducting ourselves professionally or not. A professional is one who keeps things pretty simple and never stops improving his skills.