once there was a pigeon...

like many budding struggling traders, i used to be a pigeon who would flutter away at every and any small anti-trend clap.

all kind of brave talk used to fail miserably despite my best efforts.

over a period of time a series of chance system adjustments revealed how the bluff moves of price can be spotted/segregated.

till then i always used to book too soon out of fear of losing the illusive profit.

i can't explain how frustrated i was when i was unable to run long distance trends whenever there was one.

the fact that i, like majority struggling traders, was booking loss too late in the trades gone wrong, was adding salt to my wounds.

i can't express my satisfaction (wouldn't mind calling it happiness if it were not already not-a-big-thing-anymore) having crossed that choking waterfall of a challenge.

i'm on the other side now.

it was a small step of improvement but with giant consequences.

if u look at the corollary of this, u'll notice that this improvement in system also helped me dropping the wrong side fast enough and thus cutting losing trades sooner than later.

with passing time and practice, even the remaining fear will be gone (i am, like a typical "doodh ka jala", still looking for the ways my system will fail some day in a new way!!!).

but i'm reasonably sure that while the newer situations will keep arising, leading to sneezes and hiccups in my system, the hits will be smaller hopefully and i'll use even those instances to further improve my trading system.

taming the fear is at fairly advanced level.

the skin of my trading mind is quite thick by now.

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my next challenge was/is....scaling up.

i have said and written at various places in the last many years that i had decided not to trade REAL BIG size till i had developed the system fairly well...... till the system was fairly stabilized and had proved itself respectfully in various conditions and seasons.

my view always has been that jacking up the stakes and getting big returns never takes too much of time. but it doesn't happen till the "multiplication factor" system is in place.

otherwise, the buggy system is equally good in bleeding u real fast.

so, after having fairly stabilized the trading system, my next aim is to jack up the stakes. easier said than done.

it is like venturing into a new territory with many unknowns.

gradually working on this in steps these days. and at no point, without safety harness......