Open Letter to myself

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)

 

1. 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.
2. 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.)
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Trading Plan. I will commit time every night I trade to further developing and refining my trading plan.

<o> </o>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>

<o></o>Ademac

pick up Trading in the zone by Mark Douglas

ya you can get it at walmart.com or amazon, i tryed ebay but it sells used for almost the same price as both of these web sites so u can sell it after u are all knolegable for almost the same price as u bought it for

Ademac,

I beleive you start making money when you get serious in Forex trading. I like the way that you put everything together.

You might also find my trading vision useful.

I wish you luck,
Al

Wow, you just described me! Good thread starter.

Ademac:
Good to see that you have laid down a plan. Awesome beginning. I would like to make one suggestion. It's a little thing, but the little things do matter a LOT.
You have tagged yourself as "Conscious Incompetent" and placed yourself as
" Lost in the Ether"
Lose that crap. Tag yourself a winner and you'll be a winner, tag yourself a loser - and, well you know.
Yeah, I know, people say 'it's only an expression' or "i don't really mean it that way'. Thoughts and words are creative. You gotta be carefull when talking to yourself cause no one will ever talk as bad about you as you will to yourself. Watch that self talk.
Good Trading to you.

Mr. Green,

Great stuff. I quite agree with you.

Thanks mrgreen,

Thanks for pointing out those self-fulfilling prophesies.

Enjoy
Ademac

I can still be a noob though right?

ademac,

I great self analysis...you have turned a page within your trading experience and have realized what 95% of traders never understand. This is not a game, if you want success, you must treat it like a business. You are seeing the big picture, congrats and good luck.

Northpro

You GO ademac!

Focusing like this and writing down your goals is great and will serve you well. It took courage for you to post these in public, but the accountablity will help keep you focused.

Think carefully about risking 2%. If you haven't been consistent up to this point, may I recommend you begin with 1% or less and work your way up to 2%?

I like your attitude ademac!!

Dial