I have often written took me seven years to learn how to do long term and intra-day futures, then took me another seven years to get decent at scalping. I have seldom had to depend on profits for my way of life, until several years ago always had jobs to work for others or businesses I ran on the side. Then I got number of weird health problems and cancers, but continue to live as I live. Yea, beginning years are hard cause as men we likely to lie we are getting better and actually getting worse as we get too much data and get confused, so have to start throwing away what is man-made and go more with using a straight-edge, as time passes and your rules are within your sub-conscious, then you can add couple indicators to confirm for larger positions. Although am scalper for most part intraday, I do it most differently than the masses and my risk is usually far greater than the norm and I average down, when people have told me don't do something, becomes a challenge to me and I just find a way to do it. Trading is one of the greatest careers in the world, but you have to do it for the challenge first and results are profits which are secondary. You do so many trades for so many years, losses are more like a minor frustration than anything else, you just get use to not losing often. You have trained your brain to look for profitable trades, but when starting out most train their brain to lose.
And last year after 39 years of trading, finally made a method I can accept for day trading, I simple don't like losing and minor drawdowns means more for me than profits, but if you not losing often, equity curve is smoother.
I have found in life there some people afraid of being successful so they sabotage themselves, if they become wealthy, they fear the unknown.
