Some may think it’s a pointless exercise to look back and think “What if?” but doing so can sometimes allow us to reflect and see just how far we’ve come. Aside from that, it also serves as a good source of wisdom for others who may now be in the same position you were.
One skill I wish I had mastered earlier in my trading career is the ability to detach emotionally from the outcome of each individual trade. Early on, I was heavily influenced by the wins and losses, letting them dictate my mood and often leading to impulsive decisions. A string of wins would inflate my confidence, causing me to take on excessive risk, while a loss would trigger anxiety and a desire to “get even” with the market. This emotional rollercoaster inevitably led to inconsistent results and, at times, significant setbacks.
If I had learned sooner to view each trade as just one data point in a larger statistical sample, and to focus on the process rather than the immediate profit or loss, I would have avoided many costly mistakes. Mastering emotional detachment would have allowed me to stick to my trading plan more consistently, manage risk more effectively, and ultimately, develop a more sustainable and profitable approach to trading. It’s a skill that takes time and practice to cultivate, but it’s absolutely essential for long-term success in this field.
Learning to develop my own trading strategy much earlier would have helped, rather than trying to find something to copy with the silly belief that that would enable me to trade profitably.
I wasted lots of time doing that.
I think it’s quite an easy mistake to make, though, partly because it’s natural to imagine that experience will be more valuable than education, but when you’re trying to learn to trade, however counter-intuitive it may seem at the time, the opposite’s actually true.
Eventually, reading a book by Tushar Chande called ‘Beyond Technical Analysis: How to Develop and Implement a Winning Trading System’ was very helpful to me. I just wish I’d read it much earlier, rather than keeping on watching stupid videos on Youtube looking for something to “just copy”.
Honestly, If I could go back in time, I would like to master patience. What about you?
I wasted some.
But what I wasted loads of time on was what trading “educators” always call psychology.
I had the misfortune to learn to trade at a time when the awful books of someone caled Douglas were popular and recommended everywhere. What a waste of time that was!
It sounds really stupid with hindsight, but all the struggling learners like me, who didn’t have an edge mostly just because we didn’t actually know how to tell whether or not we had an edge, thought the reasons we kept losing were “psychological”. He was a persuasive writer of ■■■■■■■■. (I found out later that he couldn’t actually trade himself, either.)
The ability to tell whether or not what I was doing had an edge. It’s a much harder skill to learn than I thought!
Hi Ms. @Penelopip,
If I could turn back time …
I want to start everything with good Trading Management. If I was aware of this 25 years ago, my life would be very different now.
Probably I would have my own private jet and would have visit Babypips HQ, bringing and eating my favorite delicacies together. Do you like pancakes?
It’s no harm to have a dream
It’s definitely consistency for me. When I was starting out, I wanted to be consistent, but I didn’t really take is as seriously as I should have.
In my mind, since I was only a part-time trader, I’d be okay with just trading every now and then or whenever I felt like it. But now, I can’t help but think that I’d be far along my trading journey if I were more consistent from the very beginning.
Since I trade with Expert Advisors, I wish I had known that Expert Advisors can’t do miracles either and that you need to know about the mechanics of the stock market just like a discretionary trader. Oh yes, and patience is also a very important skill! Then Expert Advisors will work perfectly.
Risk management, hands down! Would’ve saved me from some painful lessons.
Its so comforting to know there is someone out there who is of the same opinion as I. Mark Douglas’ books are for some reason overrated. His concepts are not applicable to every trader.
Probably trying too learn too much all at once. I should of just started with one strategy and traded the rules to the T and learning by doing, and doing it consistently.
I jumped around too much, not actually learning anything, looking for the holy grail of indicators, or chart patterns or that system that guarantees profits.
I wish I had mastered risk management earlier in my career. Properly allocating capital and controlling exposure is key to long-term success, and patience is the cornerstone of making rational, sustainable decisions.
One strategy i thought if i had inculcated to my trading is waiting for a candle to completely formed and close before placing an order. Most time i entered into a trade when the market touched either a support or resistance level, thinking the market would react and bounce back. But unfortunately, the market may continue in that direction, hit my stop loss and still continue. Now, even after a news is released i still patiently wait for a candle to form and closed before taking any position.
This is really user defined, though (rather than being market-driven or otherwise objective), according to what time scale or volume scale or range scale you’ve chosen to set your chart to.
A hazard for all of us, sometimes. If it’s happening too often, it can indicate that one’s SLs should be wider, rather than that one should await a candle close.