One last point. After being successful for awhile, and finding something not working leading to losses can lead you to revenge trade. For example, I took some losses last week when I trusted my indicator more than my ability to read PA, and then decided to lose more getting eaten up by chop. I read a good post on ET on how to identify chop. Today, I decided to ignore my indicator, and traded on PA alone to scalp a victory through trade management. I could actually see getting rid of this indicator, but sometimes they will stop working for awhile, and then be very predictive. At this point I am going to give bias to PA when it lines up with my other indicator of current trend, plus use better timing to get into the trades through patience.
Update: I was completely wrong.. I know having patience and discipline is important but what I realized is having the technical skills is way more important. I thought I knew it all but I was trading blind all these years.. I can not express this enough.. I've been doing this for a few years now with blood, sweat and tears trying to figure out why I'm not successful.. Now, I know it's because I didn't have the necessary skills to pull it off.. If you are not successful in trading then that means you do not have the skills yet and you have to learn and learn and learn until you know the market inside and out. It's so much more complicated than you know and it's not just about a great setup. I am nowhere near where I want to be but I'm getting there..
90% of trading is emotional control/discipline and 10% knowledge. Good trading is simple, and painfully boring. You need to know very little about the market but you need to know yourself very well, inside and out. A traders biggest obstacle is their own ego, try to master that and not the market. Goodluck, it may take years if at all.
I understand discipline is very important.. I'm just adding that technical knowledge is also very important.. my trading have improved.. I've lost year after year cause I had no clue that I wasn't smart enough.. I guess I'll find out this year if I'm profitable..