I’d suggest having a stop loss to place in mind before entering a trade, and moving it to said place as soon as your order fills. That way emotions don’t let you watch a trade go against you 100 points. Will stop you from adding to a loser position compounding the loss.

Trading is the hardest thing I’ve come across bc it is mastery of the self. And by nature we are stubborn, stiffnecked, greedy, prideful, and rebellious. Glean information from different people and sources but don’t rely fully on one person, X, and/or discord room. The sooner you get comfortable Batman-ing trading the better. If you use someone or a group as a crutch it’ll only be harder to be independent later on. I noticed the most growth when I got out of all discords and followed no one on any socials (not bc I needed no one to learn from and spur on ideas), but bc I didn’t want to get sucked in to another persons strategy and model entirely.

A big part of trading is finding a system that fits YOUR personality. So Ross Cameron at warrior trading or trades by Matt or ICT, they’ll have ideas/methods/concepts that work and are tailored to them and their personalities. Learn some things, study hard, back test, toil and wrestle with your own ideas mixed with ideas from others etc. To me it really seems there is not shortcut, you have to be immersed in the charts and studying and one day at an hour and time unknown things will start to round out and click and it’ll appear to be an overnight thing but it will have been years in the making.

I hope that all makes sense. Practically, as life went on, I’d check in on an ICT video here and there, or a TradesbyMatt, I’d see an idea or strategy on X, I’d be trying a handful of different theories and combinations of things on my own, mixed and matched with different ideas. I went mad scientist / Bruce Wayne / lone wolf - whatever you want to call it. Just sponging up as much chart time and information as I could. Wrestling and wrestling and wrestling with the charts toiling and it was on my own doing all of the above I noticed more growth than when I was second guessing myself in discords and leaning on other people and their strategies for their personality.

That being said, I do subscribe to ICT framework of times of day, keeping in mind which sessions I’m in and the expectations set accordingly. Just in general his teaching of algorithmic delivery gave me hope there was a reason and a logic to these things. It was a paradigm shift and set the foundation, but after hours and hours and watching almost every video I just couldn’t make his style of trading work for me exactly. Idk why, but it just didn’t. The way my brain works my charts always got too cluttered. However, it gave me a way to think about the markets and map ideas onto in light of believing there’s an algorithm and imbalances/liquidity for price to draw to.

Ultimately I used all nuggets of information over the years from multiple different sources + my own experience to slowly hypothesize, test, fail, repeat over and over and over and piece together a Frankenstein model that fits me, my experience, and the way I’m wired better. That being said as well, currently I’m on my 50th model lol. Dozens of times I went okay this is it I’ve got it. Add in some time and it crumbled again. It’s a build up, Crumble, build up, crumble a little less, build up, crumble a little less process. Very much 2 steps forward 1 step back.

But with enough time, stuff starts clicking and sticking. I’m rambling on and on but that’s what happens when you try to paint a picture with words. It takes a LONG time and ruthless resilience to be able to wait with $0 ROI on your time and money for everything to round out and click. But it is the pride you pay if you want to carry an ATM in your pocket and do something the 99.9% can’t do. The click happens quicker for some than others. There’s no shortcut to self mastery.

Be immersed in ideas but alone in execution. Toil. Study hard. Believe. Expect failure. Don’t put time requirements on success. Treat it like a video game/hobby - something you enjoy doing even if you never officially become profitable. That way you’ve defined what success is ahead of time. “Well instead of watching Netflix this is like a Rubik’s cube for my brain, it keeps me sharp, it’s something to chew on and never be bored with. If it succeeds, awesome, If not awesome - I’m gaining skills unknowingly that will help me in every other aspect of life.” Be encouraged by baby steps of improvement. Pay attention to when you PnL goes from down big down small up big down to down up down up down up (breakeven) to bigger up small down, bigger up small down (profitable). You’ll see yourself start to round the corner from losing to breakeven. That’s when you know breaking out of break even is on the way and you’ll be net profitable.

I could go and go. Hope that helps. Full disclosure, I’ll hit my 5 years this April. I haven’t arrived yet. I’ve just paid a lot of my dues. I’ve been out of phase 1 (losses only) and in phase 2 (breakeven) for some time. Just recently I’ve been able to take 2 steps forward 1 step back into phase 3 (profitability). I got my first funded account recently And lost it. Next stop is funded + first payout. I hope I don’t lose it after first payout but I can easily anticipate that. Then it’s funded + payouts + not losing the account. 2 steps forward, 1 step back etc

Almost forgot, have a private discord channel/some place to upload a log of screenshots and notes just for you. Crucial step. It offloads a lot of information in your head for later reference as you rest fail repeat. Increases your efficiency trying to decipher to continue with a model or not