I do not have stats and probabilities on my targets. I realize more and more how important this and the absolute necessity of doing the proper leg work to have the probabilities on my side.

Liquidcci, I want to begin keeping stats on my trading, any ideas or advice on where to start?

Second, after trading for a sufficient period of time and knowing your market like the back of your hand, honestly ask yourself, is this move really likely to continue? Not "will it continue?" but, based on knowing your market well, "is it likely to continue?" And, if you determine based on your discretion that it really is likely to continue, then why the hell would you limit your profit? You have entered the trade, you have taken the risk, and now the market is moving in your favor. Let the market pay you for your work. Doing otherwise is like telling an employer that it's okay if they don't pay you what you earned this week--it's not okay, and you have earned the right to allow the market to pay you, so let it work FOR you.

It helped that I had coded and backtested the key elements of my system so that had the results to hand that said "do this and you should make money". In other words I trusted the system now just had to work on trusting myself.

I realised if I could not train myself to do this key part of trading I would never develop as a trader and that would mean eventually throwing in the towel. No way! this is too important and I enjoy it too much to run that risk. In other words a gun to my head moment, "if you can't do this you will not succeed".

Thinking in probabilities, as has been mentioned above, is a great help. How do you do this? I am getting to know my new friend probability by becoming a student of him. As he can either work for me or against me I want to know all about him. I now try to think in samples of trades, not 'this' trade, and in doing that any individual trade can't hurt me. If it can't hurt me what does it matter what it does?

Practise holding to target as a distinct discipline.

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All of this work is really trying to get me to a place where it all comes 'naturally'. For me that is a way off so I use various tactics and tools to help. Not there yet but making progress!