What helped you the most to be profitable?

Trading less and trading only when I see a good setup according to my strategy has helped me a lot in making profit from forex. This has also reduced my unnecessary loss

I've always traded with MT4 and there is a wonderful feature. You can export your log to Excel. I do it practically everytime when I feel that I made some mistakes or unplanned decisions. This analysis gives me maximum information about what I did and why I did that.
Sometimes I have to make decisions immideately and haven't much time to think it all to details. But after the working day I can analyze my trading attentively and see what was wrong. That's why I try to look not only at losses, but at wins too. As every detail may be fatal the next time. And only I can prevent my future losses.

What helped me most to be profitable?

Screentime, screentime, screentime & screentime. I also have a big passion for trading, and dont have money for the eye, that helped me focus when everything not was looking good.

Im still a work in progress but what has helped me the most:

#1 Reading journals of traders that have done what I want with forex.

No Stop loss -- serious.

Waiting for price to come to me.

Planning every possible scenario so my reaction its automatic once price action develops.

Screentime, screentime, screentime & screentime. Screentime, screentime, screentime & screentime. Screentime, screentime, screentime & screentime. Screentime,

Watching market price change and seeing patterns, seeing when and where history repeats.

I give all the credits to the Demo Practice which I have done it through out. I love to trade now and I am happily trading.

Since someone one bumped up this thread, I am going to add a little of my personal inputs.

I think the turning points for me are philosophy of some great philosophers, political leaders, sportsmen, market wizards, some great investors, celebrities, fighters, etc.

In the trading communities, there's no lack of intelligent individuals, but yet some still not able to achieve profit after many years. Personalities and neutral perceptions shape a trader in his strategies. Eg, some are biase, some are not hardworking enough, some think they are always right, etc. So due to individual's personality, it determine the success rate and speed of a profitable individual.

To be honest, I struggle a bit with the term "strategy". From my angle the strategy includes risk or money management and a few other things. Good entries and exits is something I call a method

Spending less time at the screen.

Great when you making money sleeping or at the shops or exercising.

Also understanding size and knowing when to push the size when you on your game.

Learning price action and learning the conditions of the market.. The market acts different everyday.. But if you can understand what it's trying do then you can become a better trader.. Look at this video.. He does a great job explaining how the market works..

I trade price action I have 1000s of hrs experience going through charts one bar at a time
Experience, patience & good money management

I became profitable when I started trading using the the higher time frames 4Hr, Daily, Weekly

I usually use the time frame 1 hour. because I do short-term trading that uses a small time frame.

I became more profitable when I realized that I should follow my trading plan as closely as possible and actually started doing it.

When I have realized that there is no holly grail.
When I've realized that no one can predict the movements of the market.
When I've realized that most analysts that offers their servicies are failed traders.
When I've realized that all comercial EA's does not work -If I have the Golden Goose why would I sell it!!!???
When I've realized that most, if not all, indicators can't help you, ok, mabe an oscilator to see the price divergences.
When I've realized that DISCIPLINE AND MONEY MANAGEMENT are the key ingredients in trading.

All the best and enjoy your weekend!

That's what I've always wondered about people selling EAs and strategies - if they're profitable why do they need my money?

Agreed and i don't think that EAs are any magic wands that can help anyone to become richer over the night, IMO!

True. Even a good, profitable EA requires human supervision, because the EA cannot account for the human psyche that as we all know does have an effect on the market.

Learning price action and market structure my view changed radically. Then it was just a matter of time finding a swing trading aproach that worked for me.

Thank you for this thread, very interesting read.

Paintomaker

Mine was reading books. It gave me different perspectives of successul traders. So I had a trail to follow.