What do you think separates winning traders from losing traders?
I’ll say one thing…
No-one comes into trading excited to work on risk-management and discipline, they’re not very exciting are they. But quitting the rat-race? Working for yourself, from home, on your own terms, and having the ability to literally make a living via a computer and an internet connection?
That is exciting.
And all of that is possible when you’re consistently profitable, but, not until you can understand and respect risk-management and most importantly, discipline.
Let me ask you a question. And alongside your answer, think about the results you’ve seen within your trading recently…
When you take a trade, do you know exactly where, when and why you’re getting in, and do you know exactly where, when and why you’re getting out?
Now, if you’re thinking:
‘Yes, I do know those things, but I don’t quite do that’,
And maybe you’re a trader who doesn’t quite run trades to target. Or maybe you move your stop to break-even, get stopped, then watch the trade run on to target. Or maybe you’re a trader who skips trades because although your trading plan says you should be taking them you don’t quite ‘feel’ right about them, you second-guess yourself and so on.
Or maybe you adjust your stop-loss and end up taking a bigger loss than you should have on a trade, and this is negatively affecting your edge, etc.
If you’re doing any of these things then I’d imagine that you most likely aren’t profitable. But, the thing is, saying that,
You shouldn’t actually feel bad about it at all, because you’ve just inadvertently identified why you aren’t profitable yet, and that’s because you’re making these mistakes, so – And I know this sounds simple, but honestly – If you can just remove these stumbling blocks, you’re a profitable trader.
As long as you have a strategy that provides edge, literally all you have to do is trade well, with consistency and without making any of the above mistakes. It really is as simple as that.
The thing is I’ve been there, I’ve made these mistakes myself. I’ve exited early. I’ve mis-sized positions and taken bigger losses than I should have. I’ve got in late and then hit target but skewed the reward. I’ve skipped trades out of fear and then watched them run to target, …
And on and on and on.
But thankfully the thing that saved me was:
Keeping a checkable, verifiably log of my strategies’ trades.
In fact, it’s the reason why I share the trade-log for every one of my strategies with my clients inside our programmes. So that they can see that the strategies are profitable before using them.
And after seeing them work on paper, after checking this and confirming this?
They trade with so much focus and confidence that the money makes itself.
Now, journaling is easy. Identifying the mistakes is easy. It’s removing them that’s the hard part. But if you can just do one month or one quarter where you literally follow your strategy rules to a tee, and see the results, see the money start to come in, it will change everything.
The confidence that you’ll take from that can really change your trading.
So, where to go from here?
Use your strategy rules to build a sheet showing last weeks’ trades. Last months’ trades. Last quarters’ trades. And prove to yourself that your strategy works.
From there, with that confidence and verification done and in-mind,
Just follow your rules. Every day, repeatedly.
And the money really will take care of itself.
– To your success.
Will.
p.s. Don’t have mechanical rules yet? If not, grab mine here.
