Maybe there's a misunderstanding...
You said "Discipline is easy enough once you know what you are doing...".
The process involved to have discipline regardless if one is profitable or losing...its very difficult. Seriously, the road to a top level of anything in life is not easy. Its hard work...a ton of time and energy put in it. Heck, I remember the F1 driver Hamilton saying something similar a few years back...racing is easy once you know what you're doing.
He doesn't mention the process it takes to become a F1 driver, investments in his career, sponsorship needed, top crew, demands/pressure on his family and all kind's of things I don't have a clue about...then one day he states that racing is easy. In contrast, anyone that knows just a little about F1 racing and his career...looking in from the outside...there's nothing easy about it and I'm sure his thoughts came to that conclusion after all that hard work became fruitful.
Thus, I know he doesn't mean that anyone can do it and when they do it...its easy and they'll have success on day one.
Unfortunately, there will be idiots out there that will see his statement the wrong way and believe that its easy to become a successful F1 race car driver and that anyone can do it.
This is a big misconception with trading. We have people getting involved in trading because they believe "anyone can do it and that profitably trading is easy". Some are so convince...they'll take obscene high interest loans, second mortgages on their home, borrow money from friends/family, abuse margins/leverage, trade in markets they should not be trading under the facade...trading profitably is easy just because they heard or read others say such.
My point is that any kind of success in life (e.g. sports, raising a family, career or whatever) requires a lot of work, time and energy. Most underestimate the time and energy involved and they will fall short of their goals. Some will understand how difficult it will be but will fail and then conclude its not possible...a small percentage of those that fail may even decide to spend their time & energy advocating its not possible to only grow negative energy to the point it derails them from success in other areas of their lives...causing a vicious circle of blame. Yet, a small percentage will succeed and it was not easy to get there and its not easy to maintain.
Therefore, getting back to your quote. The part I see that's the real concern or the most important aspect...its the part that states once you know what you are doing. There's something contradiction like involving those words versus racing is easy, discipline is easy or consistent profits is easy.
My opinion since day one...trading is very difficult even when you reach that point of knowing what you're doing.
This is no different than recently reading from many traders here at ET in the past month that say "trading profitably is easy...". There's a difficult process involved to become profitable and only a small percentage of traders can do it and talk about the process.
Just the same, only a small percentage of traders can become "discipline traders". You said it yourself...you mention your problems and you had to find (discover) a way around it to become profitable and consistent...so far its been working for a year now for you. That's an enormous accomplishment although I don't know how difficult the process was for you to find a way to work around your discipline problems.
This entire conversation brings me back to someone's trade journal here at ET in which this guy average about 2k in profits on most mornings and then average about 2.5k in losses on most afternoons to result on most trading days a loss around $500 dollars. It had been going on for about a month until someone told him he was trying to outsmart the market instead of trying to be profitable.
He didn't understand that statement...had a few more losing days until he had that light bulb moment about that recent reply by someone.
Don't trade in the afternoons.
It worked for awhile (he had consistent profits for a few weeks) until he tried to outsmart the market and went back to trading the afternoons...maybe because his consistent profits (banking it) gave him too much confidence. Soon after (within a few days) he had a big blowup day and called it quits.
This now ties back into what fordewind was talking about. I think many of us need someone else in the home office with us...someone that has a way to encourage us to follow our trading plan after we found a way to be profitable. I think many traders will perform better because they are maintaining that discipline due to some kind of pressure that keeps us from on track sort'uv speak. Then after some consistent success, they can then try the lone wolf at home trader environment if that's their ultimate goal.
Now I'm curious about you Vindago. You stated you found a way to work around your discipline problems and now your consistently profitable for about a year now. Is there someone in your home office with a gun, baseball bat or hooked you up to wires for electric shock to help you manage your discipline problems although I prefer the horny beautiful woman as a reward to help me maintain discipline.
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