What helped you the most to be profitable?

Still nothing helped me =(

Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget rule No.1.
Warren Buffett

...it really is that easy

However buffet is an investor not a trader, there is a massive difference. With the kindest in trading as above, you will nt win long term as you will limit your wins, and basically let your losses roll... That was the way I started off and not taking a loss was the most destructive thing!!!

you miss the point, which is: focus not on how much you are going to win, but how you are going to limit your losses. If your loss control is flawless, your profitability will take care of itself.

Agree with that. Trading is dealing with risk, a lot of starters look too much at potential profits.

For me, embracing uncertainty played a a huge role in improving my trading. Nobody knows the future and despite having an excellent trading plan, markets could move the other direction you envisioned. As above commented, when you have set your risk you can cope more easily with the uncertainty. Reducing position sizing so that you feel less stressed losing a trade, might help too.

Good Money management, good strategy, limit losses, etc..

Guys, what happened with NFP, I though I could capitalize my gains but it went wrong!!

I have several major turning points:

1. I stopped using indicators;
2. I stopped trading 1m, 5m, 15m, 1hr charts and started trading off monthly, weekly, daily and 4 hr charts;
3. I use a very simple system based on support and resistance;
4. I stopped trading all the time. Now it's about once per quarter, but when I see a good set up I go hard maximising returns for 2 to 4 weeks, then have a break from it;
5. I learned how to maximise returns (see 4).

Number 5 means that I can have that break away from it and the time frames mean I'm not glued to the screen. When I'm trading a check every 4 hours is enough. That allows me the time to analyse market structure, plan entry, stop and target levels - the whole business of trading becomes much more relaxed.

Another major turning point was my move away from market maker (MM) brokers to and ECN broker (Electronic Communications Networks).

Once you realise how MM brokers make money, it's surprising anyone trades with them. Having said that, I used to as well until I kept getting stop loss hunted.

Let's be clear on this - a Market Maker broker (CMC, Go Markets, etc) makes money when you lose. And they lose money when you win. That's because when you trade with a MM, you might think you're trading in the forex market but you're not. You're trading with your broker - hence the name Market Maker - they make the market for you. If you trade with an ECN broker, your trades are REALLY going out in to the forex market.

So, trading with a MM means you're not trading in the real forex world, just your brokers world. Because of that, when you place a trade, the MM broker takes the other side of the trade AGAINST you. If you are successful, they lose money. If you lose they clap their hands because they win. So if a load of people happen to get on the right side of a trade and it looks like the MM broker will lose big time, what happens? Well they can stop loss hunt. And believe me they do. As a MM they have control over the price.

An ECN broker pushes your trade out to the real forex world. So how do they make money?

A Market Maker makes money from spreads plus your losses. An ECN broker charges you a small amount based on (for example) 1 lot. So if I place a buy or sell trade of 1 lot, I get charged an upfront fee - could be $3.50 or $7.00. That's where they're getting money from you. From my 1 lot trade, price has only got to move in my favour by the spread plus 0.35 pips (for the $3.50 charge) for me to break even. Plus this - as MM brokers make money from spreads, their spreads are normally quite wide. An ECN broker passes your trade on to the real market where spreads are way lower (sometimes nil spread).

If you're trading with a Market Maker broker and think you're trading in the real forex world - you're not. (Perhaps the MM broker forex world should be called the Forex Matrix!). Please understand that. And understand that MM brokers make money when you lose. They lose money when you win - so how helpful and delighted are they going to be if you're wildly successful and start pulling in $100,000 a month? Not at all happy - They can't bleed money like that, so you're account will be restricted (difficulty taking out money, delays in execution of trades etc) or closed.

For the ECN broker, they don't mind if you make squillions every day - they charge the upfront fee and your losses or gains have no impact on their profit.

So, armed with that information - do you want the blue pill or the red pill? - "This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill -- the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill -- you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." (Morpheus, The Matrix)

Happy trading!
Cheers

Find a mentor that has been successful over a long period of time... its how the Institutional side do it.. the rookie gets placed with the old hand - its the fast track past the nonsense..

The problem: There are a lot of "old" traders who think they are god's gift to mankind and offer to mentor others for the big bucks and of course, in reality, they are milking us for all that we are worth, by way of mentor packages and courses guaranteed to net you some pips. If you had seen the snake oil pitches some of these old traders use....

for me it was my poker background. during m 7+ years of poker i trained my seld to handle my bankroll with discipline and move up and down the stakes according to its size. I think this is key in Forex as well.
In no way i am saying that my trading is perfect but keeping strict rules about your trade sizes according to your account balance keeps you in the game. So yes poker in my opinion is a great way to learn the basic math and psychology which prepares you for the Forex. Also the community there is great and people help eachother on their way to success...

Experience, mistakes and cold head. Cause even when you have the most profitable strategy in the world, you have to be really concentrated.

"Failure is just rehearsal for success", I've had this mentality for years, time for the big stage.

good strategy and no compromises with brokers whatever they say

Buffet always says "invest in companies you understand". I think that goes for trading too.

There are thousands of system threads on here, most of which I don't understand. For example, I find trading naked price action harder than trading with a few indicators. I like the "buy here", "sell here" nature of indicators, where are price action is much more subjective.

There are as many trading systems as there are stars in the universe. I think most of them work, or can work. Like a junk car can be fixed up, a trading system can be tweeked to give more accurate signals.

The concepts that helped change my trading are the following and they are SO simple:

1. Trade the 4H or 1D charts and NOT those in minutes.
2. Have a defined TP and SL such that TP>SL and don’t adjust it no matter what.
3. Lot size should be such that a trade will not cause you to lose 10% of your Balance.
4. Avoid trading during NFP, unemployment and interest rate announcements, and FOMC.
5. Live your life without the worries and thoughts brought by trading. I only think of and do trading for about 10 minutes each market day and the rest is all about real life.

It started good for me when I stopped looking charts all the time. Now I take my entries and close the charts. Normally have a look before start of London and New york session.

This. When I was new to trading, I never paid attention on the idea that it is a psychological war. When you actually clear your mind, unlearn what you have learned like a Jedi, and understand and accept the risk involves such that an opened trade is treated as a done deal with no room for adjustments, that's when things get much easier. Accept that trading is a game of probability.

Moving my analysis and trade setups to higher time frames has helped me a lot in improving my trade results. When I started trading on daily time frame it has changed my trading results to a great extent. But still I need consistency in doing that.