Thanks Vincevirgil and mokodo for all the helpful info. I think walking away from my trades which are controlled by trailing stops will help me give up the need to "hope" the market in a particular direction.

I have my checklist of what factors need to be in place but having the discipline to stick to this is still a challenge at times. I know from many months of testing that the system I've developed will work if only I'd stick with it. And I also know that I need to finish for the day once I'm in profit and not take any more trades.

I'm continually working on psychological challenges, I suppose it's common to want to be at the destination rather than having the patience required for the journey.

Thanks again, all your help is really greatly appreciated.

I've created a pre-entry checklist now to confirm my setups are consistent with my plan. I finished the month with 16 trades and a profit of $420 on OIL (CL). My average rate of return is 0.53R and my target is an average of 1R by the end of the year. My plan is to trade in SIM for 6 months to the end of the year.

My goal is not only to trade in SIM to make a profit after 6 months but to stick to my plan and system for that period of time. Sticking to my system was something I didn't practice when I last traded live and this has been my biggest challenge.

Feeling frustrated tonight, need to be patient as I'm boxed in by two variables which my system doesn't allow me to trade against. Frustrated too that I'm down 3R this month and have had quite a shitty month compared to last month. But then last month's start was incredible, too good to think it could be maintained But I was still enticed into thinking I had something a little bit special going on!

This month's reality check is what I need and teaches me that I need to take losses as part of my trading and to keep faith in what I'm doing.

Having a tough time at the moment. Made a loss last month and this month has started in a simliar fashion. It's made me start to doubt my system and look for new systems, ie. distractions. I think I'm primarily sturggling with my patience so don't stick resolutely to my system.

Obviously I haven't been keeping this online diary updated but I've started trading Oil futures live using ninja trader and I'm up more than $300 after commissions on a single $2500 contract after only 3 weeks. So I'm very happy with hos it's going and trading is a bit more relaxed for me. I still get upset when I take a loss but I figure it's the pain I have to experience which I don't get when trading in SIM. M

My plan is to trade the single contract for six months and then add some capital to increase the number of contracts per trade. I'm also now testing a new system for larger timeframe trades (and larger profits and stops) using FXCM's trading station.

By opening up a $50 account with FXCM I now have access to all their training videos etc. and I'm testing my new setup using a demo account.

In my diary I record at the end of each day "what did I do well?, what did I do poorly?, what improvements can I make?"

All going very nicely now and I'm a lot more patient, still a few wrinkles to iron out around discipline.