Quote from exaltedangel09:You have about 5,000 hours and $50,000 to lose before you start making any money ..
Call that a tuition fee in the university of trading. The anecdotal dropout rate among short term traders is amazingly high (in some estimates reaching 100% as the time progresses

, but mostly among short term ones, and mostly because of the easy availablity of credit (called leverage or trading on margin). So before you hit the 'buy' button (this is the safer one), make sure the position value (notional value, contract value) does not exceed your real-life cash.
The learning curve cannot be shortened because until you burn yourself, you won't believe that Bunsen burner is really as useless for warming up cold feet as they said it is. Find a successful mentor if you can get it, if not - stick to ElyteTurder, but proceed with caution. Keep your distrust on the maximum setting and equally distributed to all, including especially your own intuitions and the grasping claws of others demanding something sure for unsure performance. No shortcuts, nothing of value to be had without actual work. For it is work, a psychologically unrewarding one, and also financially unrewarding for most participants, as in all competitive games.
Start small and in the simulated trading account, and keep your expectations in the negative territory for at least 3 years, covering your expenses from other sources (legal). Avoid overtrading, by setting youself a limit on the maximum number of opening trades per unit of time (from hour to month). Widen your perspective in terms of time and markets. Stick to the liquid stuff though.
Avoid 'funny mentals', price is the king (and most news is old news). Keep it either simple or sophisticated but avoid the middle ground of intellectual snobbery. Do something shamefully lazy to benchmark yourself - naive strategies are amazingly hard to beat, at least return-wise. Keep adding to the winning strats, including the lazy one.
Remember that historical performance does not include emotions, which is why mutual funds outperform their own customers. But always test your ideas first on historical data (spanning multiple years), not on real money.
Read and re-read Schwager's Market Wizards, an online course in Statistics, and a psychology text of your choice (Steenbarger recommended). Learn how to turn off emotions or learn how to code, ideally both.
Do not watch the charts all the time. Get a life and a rewarding hobby, trading must not substitute for either. Learn the symptoms of addiction and monitor yourself for those. Reverse your intuitions - if you feel an intolerable urge to protect your money or to jump on the 'easy money' bandwagon, then go on and do it to satisfy the losers impulse, and then immediately undo it.
Oh, and forget that perfectionist goal of yours (never lose ever) - while reducing risk is the required factor, it must not lead you astray towards 'lossless' strategies such as 'costless' collars or 'iron' condors... all these are zero sum, and the only free money to be had on the buy side is in arbitrage (not to be confused with the two volatilities myth called volatility arbitrage), and you and I are just too slow for it.
Eventually if you stumble upon your market niche, stick to it and really master it. Even after you succeed, stick to realistic profit targets and 'never expect ever' to outdo Simons (i.e. make more than 3% per month). Markets do not care that you have no initial stake to make such returns worthwhile - firms cannot be set up without raising capital. Be sure that money never goes to your head, read and re-read Stanley's books (e.g. Stop Acting Rich). Stick to the Original Buffett Home, avoid conspicuous consumption like plague. Let that 'car' of yours become the synonym of 1 contract lot, and stop being the usual main-street depreciation trap.