As to confusion and sim trading... I notice that Mondays I feel a bit confused and don't trade as well. So I've started sim trading each day of the weekend via my backtesting (Sierra charts). I go to the open of some random day and trade it exactly as I would a live day. The only concession I make is running it 2X speed, so I do the first 90 min in 45 and call it a day. Takes me about an hour overall. I make an extra effort to do NoDoji's "say out loud" why you are doing what you do. It really has made a difference. I don't know that I will do it forever, or that anyone else needs to...
I traded pre-market lite size, it is like anything, can be tough to stay focused cause it goes in small pieces at times, so long as I stay with Time stop, I am safer. Day session was good, made what I more than wanted in by 9:15cdt. Just doing same setups each day, nothing changes. I use to for years tape record what I was seeing and how I was feeling. The seeing got better but took a long long time and the feeling was wrong 95% of the time, but when you are wrong that often, use it to your advantage. Most younger traders don't understand that what you are seeing deals with emotions shown with Price, and most people trade with their fears instead of being numb, no bias, go with well tested method. Starbucks time.
I can do it . It confuses me when I don't trade like I should. Is it mental, does plan need more specifics, do I need more screen time ? IDK. I keep working on all of it. I'm going to go through Douglas' trading in the zone again. Last time did the audio CD. Might do a combo of that and book.
That's fantastic ! You are a true professional . I'm guessing most amateurs don't practice on replay. I do it on occasion. I'll pause at critical times to review my thought process to make sure I'm paying attention and making decision per plan. I need to do it more although last weekend doing bar by bar analysis was helpful.
Traded calm again. Caught myself watching trades just wondering what was going to happen. Giving them time to either work or not. No stress there. I'm still not trading as well as I should be. Doing some things right but some missed trades or mistakes also. Pretty choppy today. I was able to catch a nice LOD reversal and then gave that time to run as they sometimes do. Turned into a nice win which got me green for the day. First trade was one of those doesn't feel good but the set up was pretty textbook so I took it. Not sure why I didn't want to take it. It went to target. Just gotta keep working on monitoring myself and actions so I am doing everything consistently.
The best trades usually look scary, funny I got rid of that feeling doing long term trading as I sell contract highs/buy contract lows, but in day trading, I know what I see/feel is going to be often times wrong and the trades that look right to take often do plus one tick. This has never changed in over thirty years of trading. I am glad I have defined rules, have them memorized and trade only them. I seldom every color outside of the lines. Jas, you are now seeing more in terms of your language and making notes of what you need to adjust. Keep it up.
One of the things i've been thinking about is 'what is proper state of mind' that works for me. Some days I see the set ups clear and take 'em and some days I see it and hesitate or miss 'em. Wondering if my SOM impacts it. Some days I come in very, very focused almost pumped up playing sports like focus, other days more relaxed patient but still focused and today pretty detached , observant. I figure a consistent SOM is best but then maybe I can follow my plan consistently with all those SOM's. IDK, yet.
FYI, I remind myself of the old rat/Yale student results at least a couple times each month because I still have a bad habit of believing I can know in advance how "good" a trade will be (Hint: The ones that feel impossible are usually the best, LOL) "The rat eventually figured out that the food was on the left side more often than the right, and it therefore nearly always went to the left, scoring roughly sixty per cent—D, but a passing grade. The students looked for patterns of left-right placement, and ended up scoring only fifty-two per cent, an F. The rat, having no reputation to begin with, was not embarrassed about being wrong two out of every five tries. But Yale students, who do have reputations, searched for a hidden order in the sequence. They couldn’t deal with forty-per-cent error, so they ended up with almost fifty-per-cent error."