The Road to Successful Trading

happen. It is understood that any trading system is not perfect and neither is the trader. The trader 
understand that. If the trading system’s expected win-loss is not performing as expected, the first
thing a trader should do is examine what the trader is doing. You see, a trader takes the position that 
if a system is not working as expected it is most likely the fault of the trader. Nobody else. The 
trader asks the questions: are you following your trading system to the letter? Are the indicators you 
are using for your filter reliable? Did you lose your cool and not follow your trading rules? These 
are the questions that a trader usually asks after the inevitable losing trade. A trader assumes their 
fallibility.
“But how does a trader keep a positive attitude and good self image if they are a loser”, you might 
ask. The answer is: “because losing is a relative thing”. If a trader expects to lose a certain amount 
of the time, it becomes a normal event. In fact, a trader views a losing trade as a golden opportunity 
to learn and improve; thus, the importance of Journaling and analysis procedures. But it can still be 
a difficult thing for most human beings to lose money; it is the negating of things we want because 
of ones own doing. After all, it is our emotions that make us human and learning how to reprogram 
the knee jerk emotional response to losing is perhaps the most important task of becoming a 
successful trader. 
It is one thing to talk intellectually about how to lose. It is another to neuter the pain. From the time 
we are small children, we are constantly conditioned about the beauty of reward and the emptiness 
of no reward. It becomes ingrained in our subconscious; winning or doing a good job feels good and 
losing feels bad. It goes way back and is reinforced almost everyday. It usually isn’t until we have 
experienced enough losing that we learn that our infantile programming about not doing things right 
can be wiped away. But not all people reach that realization. It is a requirement for a trader to have 
emotionally-intellectually evolved to at least this point.
The importance of developing a way to cope with the emotions that are part of our makeup as 
humans can’t be over estimated. Some traders study ancient techniques such as Yoga or 
Transcendental Meditation to control emotions. Others develop their own ways to cope with the 
stress of losing.