Great job! You certainly have a lot going on!
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And it appears itās probably always going to be heavy so I just have to learn to work everything in.
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Congrats on passing your exams!
Having a steady source of income to fund your trading account can make you better as a trader because you wonāt have the pressure and desperation to live off of trading alone. You can focus on improving your trading skills without worrying about profits or loss.
I donāt think youāre slacking. Making strides in your field will help you make strides in trading.
See you at the top! 
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Undeniable words friend. Thank you!
Conversely, it can take off the pressure to succeed. Hence, making you slack off whereas if there were pressure on you to stay focused, you would have persevered.
Being desperate could be used as a benefit. Imagine being so desperate to succeed, that you were willing to stop trading desperately and just be patient.
No one reaches his potential from his comfort zone. Ever.
Also, trading is all about profit and loss. Obviously, if youāre losing all the time, youāre not trading well. You SHOULD worry about your profit and loss. But in percentage, not in dollars.
Only in the early stages, should we have some supplemental income. There wonāt be any profits in the beginning as a trader. I agree with you about that. Weāll need some income in order to focus on studying and paper trading. But the goal is always about more profit than loss. If you can trade well, why wouldnāt you want to live off of profits from trading?
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Congratulations 
This is good news, keep up the spirit.
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Coming in with the other side of the story aswell, thank you.
Undeniable words aswell. This appears to be my current situation with only a slippery path ahead of finding balance. And as someone who works best under pressure I cannot deny that I find my conditions slightly unfavorable with my personality. Not to say I live a horrible life and I wish it gone; not to say I live my best life and dismiss change.
Youāve given me food for thought friend. Thank you!
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I donāt know your conditions, but perhaps thereās a way to use that to your advantage. Use it as motivation. Boxers go to training camps before a fight.
They donāt stay in fancy hotels. They go someplace uncomfortable and train.
So for you, your perspective can be that your conditions will improve once youāre profitable in trading. This can serve as a reminder to be patient, stick to your strategy, and trade properly.
What do you think?
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I do want to live off my profits for trading. Itās going to take years before Iāll be able to do that. I donāt want to learn to trade while being desperate to make trades that I need to pay for groceries or rent. I would discourage any trader who is trying to do it that way.
Desperation can bring success and there are traders who do it, but the ones I know that did it usually recommend that traders have a job, so they donāt have to trade with any desperation. Itās better to deal with slacking off and getting out of any comfort zone than to trade with desperation.
Itās better to trade without worrying about profits or loss. Worrying here means anxiety. Being anxious over profits and losses can lead to bad trading.
A trader who is anxious over losing money might place stop losses too tight. A trader who is anxious over winning money might take profits too soon and not let the winners run. This anxiety will only be magnified when trading in a desperate situation.
I think a trader needs to care about profits and losses without getting anxious over it because he is worried if his trades will cover the bills.
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Yeah, i agree. Trading can be quite stressful. Gotta watch out for reckless action!
I like that perspective. Itās incredible the way one can derive motivation and eventually reach discipline through.
At the end of the day it seems that you have to build your own way to discipline both in trading and in life.
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The grind begins to become fun at this point.
295 Lessons deep and starting undergraduate senior I find myself obsessed 
The good kind though, hopefully.
Recently Iāve covered trading plans and the works. Creating your own system, the rules applying, and journaling. Iāve begun structuring my very own plan and I have already revised it a dozen times and I expect to revise it many, many, many times more. Iāve been using Google Doc to make it and plan to have it available to read to myself every time I turn my PC on.
I find myself struggling to figure out how to entirely build a system though. I believe I have finally reached a point in my journey where I can no longer spend my time simply reading and note taking. The age of back testing and running primitive plans through market data to figure out what works best for myself has arrived. I can hardly contain my excitement for this step.
My starting plan will follow myself running bare minimum strategies and systems that will more than likely absolutely crash and burn 
But this is my idea. If I can figure out the ways to fail, then I must eventually find a way to be successful.
This of course does not include every way as Iām sure that is, well infinite. But, by beginning to understand, see, and test for myself WHY systems fail I set myself on a path to discover WHY systems work. And that information itself will be priceless upon its discovery.
At the end of the day Iāll be working as smart as I can to keep it simple. I myself am a minimalist. I find things get to busy and cluttered with a screen that looks like I just dropped a mega pack of skittles 
Well, less talking and more doing Tony.
Cheers dudes See you at the top.
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Looks like youāre in a good place. Iām only a few steps ahead of you. I reached a similar point where I was obsessed and excited to put all this knowledge to the test. That obsession and excitement for learning and experimenting will take you far and get you through the struggles.
Itās only through experience that comes with a lot of mistakes and failure that we can improve as traders. When I got closer to the end of the School of Pipsology, I realized it will take years to get good with trading.
Itās great that youāve gotten a sense of what it will take to make it in this business. It is an endless process of discovery because the market is always changing. A lot of people who try trading never get this understanding of what it takes and end up quitting.
Cheers!
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A lot of feelings around my current progress.
Iāve found myself this past week quite the number of times thinking Iāve spent hours accomplishing absolutely nothing. Wondering if I even grasp concepts well enough to be attempting what Iām doing.
It hasnāt all been for not though. Iām dragging myself towards success. Itās odd. After failing so many times this week in so many different approaches; realizing that this is just the beginning and Iāll be failing even more, excites me
Well yaāknow I plan on just absolutely breaking everything till I can put it back together perfectly.
Covered some basic topics more in depth this week such as position sizing and elements of risk management.
Iām hoping to be able to figure out this back testing more than I do now to keep a good record of all the strategies and formulas I run through it. This is all just a numbers game.
Cheers
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I still feel the same way. I feel like Iāve spent all this time studying, and I havenāt really learned anything.
But thatās actually a good place to be. Itās the second stage out of the 4 Stages of Competence.
1st Stage: Unconscious Incompetence (Ignorance)
āHow hard can it be? Itāll be fine.ā
2nd Stage: Conscious Incompetence (Awareness)
āCrikey! I have no idea what Iām doing. I better get learning.ā
3rd Stage: Conscious Competence (Learning)
āWow, I actually know what Iām doing.ā
4th Stage: Unconscious Competence (Mastery)
āI donāt know, I just do it.ā
Thatās from this article:
Four Stages of Competence: How We Learn Every New Skill (themindcollection.com)
Youāre already ahead of me because youāre already trading. Iām happy to see youāre making good progress.
It will take time and experience before we can make trades that always win while being blindfolded with our hands tied behind our backs.
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Youāve really come far with this. Congrats.
You sound like youāve started trying your hands on charts.
Failing is inevitably necessary for success. You I cringe each time I recall that Thomas Edison failed with the light bulb over 1000 times.
What the heck was he thinking not to have given up at the 100th failed attempt.
Well, I believe he saw something no one else saw.
Hence your vision is the only thing that can make your present failures look like stepping stones to your future success.
Wow, look what we have here, this smartypants just dropped a quote.
See at the top, cheersš„
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Just as success doesnāt come overnight, same way mastery doesnāt.
At the beginning, I was really trying to absorb all I read. I wanted to know every word, definitions, calculations, that crossed my sight.
It dawned on me that no matter how long I spent on a topic, that wonāt cause me to know it well enough not to have to revisit it if the need arises later.
Besides, where the real knowledge of trading lies is in the experience of the market (not saying the theory isnāt important).
The main teacher is the market, and the successful traders out there who have attained the mastery level, are good students of the market.
Weāll always return to the books to interpret what the market teaches, and with this, mastery cannot be far off.
It only takes time.
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2nd Stage baby thatās what Iām talking about!
You put progression that way and it makes the road markers on your journey a bit easier to see my friend, thank you.
Yeah charting is rough man. I cannot wait till Iām able to look at one and understand to the fullest extent of my ability what Iām seeing and itās interpretations.
Hence why Iāve begun to move aggressively into charting. Like you said, the most understanding you can derive is from the real experience.
Cheers dudes
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Twenty-three lessons left.
This progression has been daunting. The change in my mindset through this course has been unreal. The number of times Iāve bounced between different ideas, markets, and securities ever changing my perspective on what exactly would give me the best shot at becoming a successful trader over the past months has been enlightening.
I say this because I now truly have an understanding of what it takes.
We can throw indicators at the screen, do all the fundamental research, stare at the charts, pay for as many āwinning strategiesā until our pockets run dry, and conquer the emotions inside of us.
Truly, what I have learned through my obsessive dive into the Forex market and those like it so far is as follows.
The truly successful traders who are able to withstand the chaos throughout the ages are scientists. To be more specific, market scientists. These are people who leave nothing on their end to chance. Weāve all heard about the institutional traders, the firms, the large corporations, and the banks. Weāre told over and over that weāre competing with those who have PHDās and are mathematicians. So, is that not our answer there? Weāre constantly looking for ways to outsmart geniuses without becoming genius.
Developing a truly successful edge for however long it takes requires one to literally become a market scientist. Yes, could one be a discretionary trader and reap rewards through incredible skill? Of course. Could that same discretionary trader survive throughout the ages? No.
The markets are ever changing and no amount of this āunderstandingā could make someone profitable over the long period.
A market scientist who has developed a profitable edge through very careful and methodical statistical testing and scientific processes will always come out on top. This does not discount risk management and any other factor that plays into a trader being successful. These people have literally taken everything into account and do not leave one little detail for misinterpretation. Everything is defined. Everything has parameters. Everything is a ratio. And they always make sure theyāre winning.
This is what Iāve decided to be. Leave nothing on my end to chance. Record everything. Run every minute detail through the gauntlet of study.
This does not mean I shall always win. But it sure well means Iāll never be out of the game.
Iāve enjoyed the School of Pipsology so far! Never thought it would set me on the path I am now.
"Stop looking for certainty, stop worrying about luck and designing something that will prove to be infinitely viable. Become a market scientist, create a viable market theory, play it out until it stops working (hopefully, if it is exceedingly robust, you will be dead long before that happens), and then have a feedback mechanism ready so that you can roll with the punches, make your adjustments, and continue moving forward." - Chris
Cheers to success
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Iām amazed to see the progress youāve made and the realizations youāve had so far. Itās amazing that Iāve come up with conclusions that are similar to what you wrote about here.
Itās almost like Iām reading my own journal when I read your post, but you articulated it much better than I could. Great minds . . .
Who is Chris? I love that quote. Itās the first time Iāve seen someone talk about being a market scientist that way.
Cheers to success
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