First become a good trader then focus on the chartsFor day traders, traders who focus on technical analysis it is very important to first master the mental aspect of trading before they move to actual charting. This blog post and video will help you understand the path you need to take if you are a new or struggling trader.
The biggest challenge we see in new traders is that the new traders want to learn as quickly as possible to earn, they rush into trading live and that "rush" doesn't actually allow them to actually learn how to trade, successful trading comes in two parts, the first is mental skills and the second is a complete trading system, without having both of these traders fail.
I'll quote Richard Dennis, a legendary trader, to explain the importance of mindset,
I always say you could publish rules in a newspaper and no one would follow them. The key is consistency and discipline.
Discipline and consistency are mental skills, nothing to do with the system everything to do with the mindset. Meaning that you could have at your disposal the best trading system in the world, but if you don't follow it (with consistency and discipline) you are doomed to failure. - Since you simply won't follow the system.
Most of the great traders that I know or follow, who trade based on charts like us, were great traders first, now once they became great traders (mentally) then, after they because great traders they learned how to read charts and built or learnt trading systems.
Trading is the hardest easy job in the world, easy because you choose everything, from exposure, to when and where you work and all the way to how much you make or lose. You are in control and always will be, but you're only in control when you manage your mindset throughout the day with discipline and consistency.
The main reason we are sharing this is because we have gotten a lot of new members in our community and followers on tradingview, and we just want to help everyone new to us to master their emotions first and then focus on the profits!
Now, while I mention profits above I want to explain the correlation profits have to deeds, I firmly believe in cause and effect, and I believe it works in this way:
poor or average causes = poor or average results (losses, failure, stress)
Good causes = good results
Great or extraordinary causes = great or extraordinary results
Like I mention above, you get to choose everything you do in trading, this is the main difference between actual trading and gambling.
Who are you going to be today? A gambler or a trader? - The choice is always yours!
WHAT WE RECOMMEND TO NEW OR STRUGGLING TRADERS:
Our first recommendation is that you fully focus on yourself, find and accept your weaknesses or limitations.
Weaknesses are overtrading, no patience or discipline. Find them and create plans to remove them, if you're not challenging yourself you cannot be a good or great trader.
Limitations are not having much time, not having capital, not having knowledge, all of which you can work on if you're serious about trading success.
Next is the system, you must find or create a complete trading system... that is the easy part, all you need is a system that governs every aspect of your trading and we have one, not to make this promotional, but you can get our day trade for a living course here and replicate our system.
Now charts are important, very important so you must learn how to read charts, that will only come from practice, lots of practice! Think about it like this, if all the great businessmen/women, sports people and everyone in between practice (read, train etc) don't you think as a trader you need to do the same?
In a nutshell, first develop your mental trading skills, then you can use charts to supplement your trading skills. Just know this, without trading skills your charting knowledge will not be valuable. - You need them both!
