After reviewing some of my old posts and some other sources, I think I finally understand the nature of my problem.
Honestly I think what happened was that I haven't been trying as hard to improve my trading as I used to. I spend just as much if not more time on market work (and I still work hard), but my trading has still suffered.
Let me explain - since last December and the first several months of the year, I was very focused on solving my initial mental problems, developing my concepts on the market through research, and learning to apply those concepts and ones I learned from others. Over time it worked, and it worked well.
Unfortunately after that kind of gave up on my progress. I thought I was finished the bulk of my research, and that mental progress would come to me after I just casually log more and more hours into the market.
(This is best shown by my charts on the Russell 2000 - I've actually believed that I have little enough left to learn with my current analysis method that one of the best uses of my time was watching the Russell 2000. Perhaps not the worst idea ever, but enough to question my intelligence).
Over time I was only working on minor mental concepts, money management, and TA (I know more about wide range bars than any normal person should ever know), and I lost enough focus on maintaining and continuing my real progress and development that I now make all my old mental mistakes again when trading.
What made me realize this was reading over a thread in which someone told me they spend 60 hours a week on trading, and I started remembering all the people that have told me they work 12 and 16 hour days on the market. So I thought: what do they know that I don't? The answer of course is: they know everything I don't!
I don't have that kind of discipline, but I'm realizing now that the difference between decent traders and great traders may be that the decent trader might plop an indicator on his chart with the default settings, do 3 hours of research, and learn things by just casually watching it over time. This is what I did. On the other hand, the great trader is likely putting that indicator on hundreds or thousands of charts to know its in and outs, researching it and analyzing it on end for 16 hour days, experimenting with it on different settings, and probably backtesting it versus others as well.
Now everything has always come easy to me before this and I've always lacked both the discipline and attention span to work 16 hour days 6 days per week. I also have a lot of flaws like overseeing things, I'm a slow learner, make a lot of stupid mistakes, and lack of attention to detail. As a result I clearly understand that I will never be one of the greatest traders who ever walked, nor has that ever been my goal.
However I fully realize now what is between me and being truly successful at this, and it is persistently hard, focused work.
Attachment: something I found interesting today. This actually occurred immediately before the 75 pip rally or whatever it was
Honestly I think what happened was that I haven't been trying as hard to improve my trading as I used to. I spend just as much if not more time on market work (and I still work hard), but my trading has still suffered.
Let me explain - since last December and the first several months of the year, I was very focused on solving my initial mental problems, developing my concepts on the market through research, and learning to apply those concepts and ones I learned from others. Over time it worked, and it worked well.
Unfortunately after that kind of gave up on my progress. I thought I was finished the bulk of my research, and that mental progress would come to me after I just casually log more and more hours into the market.
(This is best shown by my charts on the Russell 2000 - I've actually believed that I have little enough left to learn with my current analysis method that one of the best uses of my time was watching the Russell 2000. Perhaps not the worst idea ever, but enough to question my intelligence).
Over time I was only working on minor mental concepts, money management, and TA (I know more about wide range bars than any normal person should ever know), and I lost enough focus on maintaining and continuing my real progress and development that I now make all my old mental mistakes again when trading.
What made me realize this was reading over a thread in which someone told me they spend 60 hours a week on trading, and I started remembering all the people that have told me they work 12 and 16 hour days on the market. So I thought: what do they know that I don't? The answer of course is: they know everything I don't!
I don't have that kind of discipline, but I'm realizing now that the difference between decent traders and great traders may be that the decent trader might plop an indicator on his chart with the default settings, do 3 hours of research, and learn things by just casually watching it over time. This is what I did. On the other hand, the great trader is likely putting that indicator on hundreds or thousands of charts to know its in and outs, researching it and analyzing it on end for 16 hour days, experimenting with it on different settings, and probably backtesting it versus others as well.
Now everything has always come easy to me before this and I've always lacked both the discipline and attention span to work 16 hour days 6 days per week. I also have a lot of flaws like overseeing things, I'm a slow learner, make a lot of stupid mistakes, and lack of attention to detail. As a result I clearly understand that I will never be one of the greatest traders who ever walked, nor has that ever been my goal.
However I fully realize now what is between me and being truly successful at this, and it is persistently hard, focused work.
Attachment: something I found interesting today. This actually occurred immediately before the 75 pip rally or whatever it was
