Defining Success in Trading w/ LordSeanConnery
Hello fellow traders, LSC here and I wanted to just go over some personal insights on what I define as success.
First and foremost, success is definitely defined as being profitable, maybe not every day, but overall, having more up days than down days, or even just seeing mostly green days over a certain time frame such as every week or every month. I don’t think any trader could claim success if they weren’t profitable, so this would be the most important defining point of success.
Profitability is important, but it’s just as crucial to achieve it by making the right trades, and not just catching lucky trades or even worse, having a bad process with great outcomes that can reinforce habits.
That will eventually destroy you. Sure some people could run hot making coin flip trades that all end up working out, but those runs only go for so long.
There was always an underlying fear long ago whether I would be able to make it, and that’s natural. Every trader always wonders “Am I going to make it, or am I going to just throw in the towel and go back to a normal 9 to 5 like the majority of society?” It’s not a profession where you put X work in and get paid Y for your work effort. Each day is different and having drawdowns a few days in a row can really challenge your psychology.
One of the biggest defenses against losing my mental edge was relying on my studies, long-term stats on my setups, and math-driven levels. Seeing how, over the years, sticking to my plan would yield positive expectancy in the long term gave me confidence. I realized the only way I could fail was by letting fear take over and steer me away from the process.
“I realized the only way I could fail was by letting fear take over and steer me away from the process.“
– LordSeanConnery
I’d say that one thing that defines success in trading is having confidence in your abilities and your decisions. In a trading community, being around veteran traders like FuturesTrader71, John471, BrianB, and BalancedTrader can be tempting to instantly throw your viewpoint out the window, or kill a trade when you see one of these traders chime in taking an opposite trade. I remember years ago when I still messed with the ES, I’d have some position on with what I assessed to be the right trade, and then see FuturesTrader71 be in an opposite trade, and I’d think to myself “oh shucks, well FuturesTrader71 is much more experienced so he must be right. I’ll just flip my trade or kill my trade.” It’s a real kick in the gut when your market assessment was spot on, but you second-guessed it because of authority bias. This is something many traders face regularly.
Lastly, sustaining success isn’t just about achieving the points I mentioned, but also about continuously learning and adding to your trading arsenal. It’s equally important to improve on any weaknesses along the way. For me, the Accelerator Program helped me sharpen up on cutting down errors, as well as helped me expand on my scenario building.
LordSeanConnery
CT Product Leader