You are not a trader until you …
You stop going to the bank for more loans. I had just started trading futures in the 80's, I thought "wow, this is easy", not knowing the whys of seasonality/weather of Soybeans and having a broker help me who knew less than I did, market was going up, up, up, broker call me almost each day to tell me I had enough to put on another contract, I ran it from 5k to 105k in short time, already was thinking I be a millionaire like next week, then... "what you mean it is Limit down"? what does that mean? Longest 3 days of my life, broker says they got me out and margin call as I was 5k in the hole? F***
Some point I stopped getting loans or using credit cards, no longer needed to use car titles and real estate for collateral, you have to really judge how you doing by your account.
You are not a trader until you …
You have taken a "major" hit based on exceeding one's back testing but it is a small percentage of your account. You learn back testing will be exceeded both good and back, but gives a roadmap of stats.
You are not a trader until you …
Stop lying to yourself, so easy to think you getting better and this profession can't be this hard since you are a smart person. Market does not care who you are, some of the brightest have lost everything they had when they went "stick in the mud". Was years of me saying "I am so close" and yet refused to learn how to program, not until I gave in to learn, this made me more of either yes/no, on/off, 0/1 mentality, gave me more discipline. Unless the account is going up, you are going nowhere.