"There was a sculptor. He found this stone, a special stone. He dragged it home and he worked on it for months until he finally finished it. When he was ready he showed it to his friends. They said he had created a great masterpiece, but the sculptor said he hadn't created anything. The statue was always there, he just chipped away the rough edges."
This worked for me. It may not work for you. I drink while I trade. I time it so I don't pass out until the closing bell. One day, I was kicked back, feet on the desk, champagne glass almost slipping from my fingers. I was at that dreamy point where I might have a great sexual fantasy, or a brilliant brainfart. My breathing slowed. I was watching my annotated one-second chart. Tout d'un coup, Bitch Market and I were one. I breathed. She sighed. We were one. It was like having both a dick and a pussy. I started dreaming trading that night. I dream systems. I trade them in my dreams. If I can remember them, I backtest them. They work.
I don't remember the exact saying but it goes something like this: "Traders that focus on how much they can make, lose money. And traders that focus on how much they can lose, make money." And so after realizing this, I shifted my focus entirely to limiting risk and drawdowns. This focus on risk is the one thing that has improved my trading more than anything else. I now experience less frequent and less intense drawdowns, I experience a lot less stress, and I have tons of free time away from the markets. I don't have a clue as to how much I money I have made until the end of the week when I finally look at my balance and I am often surprised by how much I made without even realizing it because I paid no attention to profits - my focus was entirely on losses, limiting and preventing them.
Oh so true.... I learned trading this way as I did not have the computer facilities to make me lazy.... It stands the test of time and I am currently teaching my kids the same laborious way spreading their 20 day ,handwritten charts over the dining room table... Until you can "feel" the market, you are not in a position to trade...IMO NiN
Wish it had been as easy as only one thing. This was a very long journey with hundreds of elements or "things" making the difference. I will list some of them. * First and foremost accepting and realizing that I know nothing about the future direction of the instrument or market, only a game of probability * Trading what I see via price action, not feels, tips or news * Formulating a plan that was not only profitable but compatible with my strengths and weaknesses. - Accepting that not following the plan is not an option * Understanding that adding to losers meant I did not have a good entry method - Finding an entry method to eliminate the unnecessary adding to losers syndrome * Eliminating noisy charts * Letting winners run to the best of my abilities by using a combination of trail stops and scale outs. * Dreaming high but not too high, takes money to make money. * Reducing size on losses and increasing it on winners to further reduce the red and increase the green. * Building a position slowly as price confirms my suspected course of direction * Spending thousands of hours learning about pattern completion prediction and not about prediction after completion * Accepting that patience is a great virtue and sitting on hands a clever position * Not letting being wrong affect my conviction, it's a game of probability and I know nothing * Accepting that finding the end of an uptrend consistently is a near impossible task - Vice versa for downtrends * Respecting trends via channels - Not fading trends without breakout failures Sorry, it's most definitely not "one thing". ESD
I think a lot of people are not responding to the OP correctly. If your not making minimum 30k a year, your not very successful IMO in trading. killingtheta: that's nice, but how much $ have you made? no bluffing? that's 50% of Poker.