Thanks for sharing these very wise words, @TTH! 
I’ll keep that in mind. Although I fear that if I have to truly justify with my heart and soul, my indecisive self would never be able to trade anything. 
Embarrassing as it may be, I haven’t read anything from Volman yet. 
Which of his work would you recommend?
I know I’m not supposed to feel better after reading that, but I do! 
Hahaha. But I guess I’ve learned from the responses that although what you’ve shared might be the truth, the challenge is really focusing on myself and my own results.
Yeeeees! Thanks for your support as always Pilot!
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aw yes that old nut indecision! Familiar feeling. Well worth probing and assessing, and if we fear it might keep us from trading anything, maybe trading real money should be kept on the back burner until… we can find the courage to ignore indecision!
How so? anyone who’s been on this forum for a while has come across the adage “plan the trade, then trade the plan” . We write down our rules, both for entry and (importantly) exit; if this happens I do that, if that happens I do this. Those rules can vary immensely from one person to the other, strategy, time frame etc, but they will NOT be altered while about to click, no room for indecision. If experience shows we’d rather tweak the rules a tad, that’s done with a calm and reasonable head when no skin is committed, and in turn the new writing will not be tempered with in the heat of the moment.
But which rules to write and why? We gather data to make better informed rules. Whether paper trading or live for cash I find it useful to journal several alternatives at the same time, ie set an automatic modest TP vs a more ambitious one vs just run with no TP and trail SL; or ie set & forget vs trail loose to give room to breathe vs trail tight not to give back any gain etc, best results make it to top rules. That’s the bit that takes for ever! But it helps making somewhat informed decisions BEFORE jumping in (or staying out) and leaving as little of it as possible for when the mind cant be quite so clear. Of course the markets have a knack for always doing the unpredictable that’s not clearly in our written rules, but it helps (me) to try to follow the previously written path.
@ria_rose disclaimer, I am no expert by any stretch of imagination and certainly not entitled to dishing out any sort of advice, so I guess I’m just having a little blabber moment for the sake of communication and hope some of it could come as useful.
Hmm. 
Interesting. Although I’m not sure if this is something I can do since I feel like I will lose all progress I’ve had if I ever go back to trading just demo. I mean, I trade on my demo now to test out some strategies I find online, but solely trading demo? I’m not so sure. 
That makes sense! I’ve been meaning to document all of my trades, but rather than the numbers (which are basically the core of the trades), I end up documenting the feelings, my mindset when I open positions.
Super thank you for sharing TTH! I know you said these are not advice/ suggestions, but I really appreciate them!
best wishes for success!
Hi @ria_rose
I’ll let you in on a (maybe not so hidden) little secret:
Real profitable trading (not the 99% you see on YouTube and social media) is EXTREMELY boring. I don’t know of any professional trader that talks about their success. They tend to be passionate about their process and daily routines, not their actual trades, wins/losses etc. They are students of the game and love what they do, namely following and improving their process and routines. Most of them would do it even if they weren’t making money from it, so the money is just a huge bonus.
Personally I could talk all day about intermarket correlations, spread ratios, bond market expectations etc. The last thing I would want to discuss are win rates, Risk:Reward, my wins / losses, magical indicators, trading systems etc as thinking about these things has very little to do with making money in financial markets.
My point is that someone talking up their trading success is more than likely NOT profitable, at least not long term.
It can be frustrating when I see others winning and I’m not. I remind myself that everyone has their ups and downs. I try to focus on learning from my mistakes, avoid comparing myself to others, and just keep pushing forward.
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Hi @ria_rose, never compare others to ours.
90% traders loss because of greed. We got temptation to trade for things we don’t know. Just observe how they traded. If we can find the methodology, congratulation we got a new gold mine
I love to look at those who show their successful trade. They may give new idea or just for tricking us to follow them. No matter what the story behind, we do learn something.
Just imagine, there are 1 million trader telling their trades. It means 1 million trader scrutinize market. From this 1 million there will be at least 1 trader spotting market correctly as the rest will be buried a long the time. 