Realistic approach to consistency

I keep abandoning journals.
Maybe that's a progress. (I hope)

I don't have set goals for the day/week or the month.
Whatever I can get, I will try my hardest to hold onto.

RR no matter what you think about them, seems essential.
I will need at least 1:2 trades, more the better. Initially we wouldn't really know for sure how far a trade will go, so I will need to focus on patterns that have a high tendency to go two or more legs up or down. FOCUS seems to be the only thing that keeps coming up, on every journal. I can't trade every situation, and not every situation is worth the risk. I think we're clear about that.

who knew trading the trend was much harder than those self proclaimed gurus make us believe.

they pull up a chart and easily point out areas we should have gotten in, but what they seem to neglect is in retrospect everything is clear and easy. In reality, in real active situations it is harder to pinpoint exact points to enter. This is exactly what makes trading the trend hard, and if not almost impossible to time an entry especially if you're not seeing the big picture, the trend, and the tendency of price movements in an uptrend, or in a downtrend.

no wonder many of us go after tops and bottoms.

why?

price just doesn't go in a smooth trajectory.
they often follow a complex, and sometimes a deceiving path making it almost impossible to the naive and the inexperienced.
this is where we often fall into the trap, thinking its going down when its just about to go up or vice versa.

after 4 full years, I'm only starting to realize this.
I can't keep trying to catch tops or bottoms with 1:1, I know all too well how thats going to end.

but if I were to follow the trend, where do I get in, when do I get out ?
all I know for now is that I'm headed for the trend following path.
catching tops and bottoms isn't sustainable in the long run, I've seen it myself.
i'm barely BE currently, no where near profitability.

who knew it was going to be this hard.
but at least, I'm starting to see the big picture.

GBPUSD long @1.31982

1.3220 resistance ahead also where my TP is set.
If it does break which it might, or might not. That I can't foresee for now, but all I know is that 1.3220 is where I should be taking profit for this setup.

out -7.3pips

Waiting ....
Waiting ....
And some more waiting to do ....

TP hit.

looks like kiwi isn't ready for some correction just yet.....

Know when to be in the market.
And when to be out of the markets.

If you've accomplished this you're already one step closer to becoming a consistent trader.

And know when to take profit, sometimes profits will go as fast as it came.

A quick reminder for the day.

so far there were 5 signals (I'm keeping my focus down to 4-5types of patterns or setups)
since i'm still at the early phase, I haven't taken all but 1 trade GBPCAD short.

for the remaining 4, I mainly sat on the sidelines and observed.
if I may encounter more until the week ends , I'll take them all unless they're triggered right at the same time but that doesn't happen often.

AUDUSD out of watchlist.

not really I'm still going after top/bottom and reversals in general.
but hey if that's what I'm good at why not ?

Minor improvements:

I don't feel like I need to be in a trade 24/7 anymore
I don't force setups
I don't take unnecessary trades as much as I used to
Everything that I've observed, experienced and learned is finally coming together for me to be able to formulate a method/strategy.
For now I've got 4 types of patterns, but it may expand to 5,6 or 10.
Now I realize I wasn't really sure or knew what I was doing.
Knowing when to hold and when to be active
You're halfway there.

When you see someone successful
You only see the tip of the iceberg
What you don't see is mistake after mistake, failure after failure
What makes a successful person from the opposite is they take something away from their mistakes
Mistakes and failures are the only way to success
There's no shortcut to easy way out
You either face them and learn something
Or you reject them and keep repeating the same mistake over and over again

Mistakes are bound to happen.
They're integral part of learning.
Embrace them, or reject them
The choice is yours.