Open Letter to myself.<o
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I am reaching a stage in my short trading life (9 months) where I am frustrated by my lack of progress, now I know this is my own fault before anyone points this out. Why I am writing is an attempt to clear all the clutter from my head and put down on paper what I believe I need to do to achieve success, I will start by accepting full responsibility for my actions as they are the ones I control. I will accept I have no control over the markets and they will do what they will.
Things that need attention! I must stop system hopping between systems. It has gone on long enough, I must not shotgun trades all over the place but instead learn to pick only the best trades. I must learn to be patient and disciplined in my approach, only taking the “A” trades. I must stop demo trading like a fool and approach it seriously. I must right a detailed trading plan to ensure I focus my attention correctly and in the right manner to the job at hand. Learn my chosen method, by doing manual back testing and live forward testing, to ensure total proficiency.<o
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I am sure I am missing things out but they will come out in time, as I write down what needs doing, allowing other ideas to come to the surface.<o
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I must set GOALS. I must, I must, I must…..<o
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Now to achieve my rant, I will start by setting my first goals, and how I plan to achieve them. (I am sure some of these goals will be double ups)

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I am reaching a stage in my short trading life (9 months) where I am frustrated by my lack of progress, now I know this is my own fault before anyone points this out. Why I am writing is an attempt to clear all the clutter from my head and put down on paper what I believe I need to do to achieve success, I will start by accepting full responsibility for my actions as they are the ones I control. I will accept I have no control over the markets and they will do what they will.
Things that need attention! I must stop system hopping between systems. It has gone on long enough, I must not shotgun trades all over the place but instead learn to pick only the best trades. I must learn to be patient and disciplined in my approach, only taking the “A” trades. I must stop demo trading like a fool and approach it seriously. I must right a detailed trading plan to ensure I focus my attention correctly and in the right manner to the job at hand. Learn my chosen method, by doing manual back testing and live forward testing, to ensure total proficiency.<o

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I am sure I am missing things out but they will come out in time, as I write down what needs doing, allowing other ideas to come to the surface.<o

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I must set GOALS. I must, I must, I must…..<o

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Now to achieve my rant, I will start by setting my first goals, and how I plan to achieve them. (I am sure some of these goals will be double ups)
- Stop system hopping. I will achieve this goal by only trading the knife model as taught by Diallist. All other trading models must be deleted from my system.
- Patience and Discipline. I am not sure how well I will go but as the knife only produce’s one or two trades a month and buy adhering to it. I should be able to bring this demon to heal. (I think this goal needs more work.)
- Go live. Might sound a bit foolish but I have come to the belief that I cannot take demo-trading seriously. There is no financial incentive or punishment for good or bad trades. So I will commit $1000 to the broker of my choice. For trading in micro lots. With a maximum risk of 2% per trade and only one trade at a time. I have no intentions of losing this money, yes it is tuition money but that does not mean that I have to lose it, to learn from it.
- Record Keeping. I have always struggled to achieve this, so I will create a template that I fill in each time I place a trade. This must be filled out before the trade is place. I will use FijiTraders XLS spreadsheet to help me track how many lots I am to trade.
- Manual Back Testing. I have only just come to realise just how important this really is. To that end every day that I want to trade I will complete 1hrs manual back testing and recording of my practice trades. This will instil in me the confidence to follow the model and not stray from the path. If I fail to do this the next day I will not trade until I have completed the previous days work and the current days work.
- Financial goals. I am not going to get ahead of myself here. My primary goal is to survive a year without blowing up my account. As a secondary goal I will attempt to double my account size. At no time can the secondary goal override the primary goal. If I succeed in achieving the primary goal I will be well on the way to achieving the secondary goal if I haven’t already achieved it. When the primary & secondary goals have been achieved I will double the size of my account, and begin again.
- Trading Plan. I will commit time every night I trade to further developing and refining my trading plan.
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>After writing all this am feeling a bit exposed to the harsh light of reality, but I view this as a marker laid down that I can view my progress upon and come back to at regular intervals to help me stay oncourse and heading in the right direction.<o
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Oh well, no time like the present to achieve goal 1.<o>
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Enjoy<o></o
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>Ademac