Jan 2008 is when I placed my first trade, it’s been 15 years now. The first five years was brutal, I use to spend more than 12 hours a day, trading & analysing the markets all day. It took me 5 years to realise I have been trading my health for my wealth.
I used to be very active in Traderji forum back then, was fascinated by all the profits people post there. Looking at those screenshots, I keep pushing myself to learn more about the markets, because one day I wanted to be like them. I wanted to make big profits.
The initial years I was busy searching for holy grail in the market. I was desperately tracking so called successful traders trying to decode their secret trading strategy. I have backtested 100s of strategies in Amibroker without even realising what curve fitting means. Opted for personal loan, traded with those curve fitted systems only to lose money. Then jumping from one system to other system thinking that market regime changed. By the time I realised the real secret is “There is no secret”, my 5 years of parenting life was gone.
The real trader’s success shouldn’t be measured on whats their max drawdown and their total returns. It should be measured on at what cost they are able to make that profit? This industry has high burnout ratio. I have seen many people quit trading because of mental pressure. These pressure comes when people don’t follow a predefined process. When you are trading without a process, you are bombarded with tons of information every second, this puts you in immense pressure to react for every movement in price. Eventually you burnout.
Never once I was impressed with a trader who has posted biggest profits, because now I can understand what he has to go through to make such profits, when it comes at a cost of losing work life balance, no matter how much they make, it is not worth it. After losing 5 years of my precious life, I decided to follow data based process driven approach. I dont want to keep making decision every now & then, let me design the system that takes care of all such decisions. Control the risk, let the market decides the returns.
Initially journey of system trading was not easy as it looked, use to follow a trading system but killing with own discretionary process. Once you surrender yourself to the system completely & follow it with discipline, magic happens. Suddenly you get your time in your control. That is all it matters finally, the one who manages his time effectively, manages everything else with ease. Your trading & personal life balance falls in perfect rhythm, you dont feel any distraction about how much other traders make. You finally get that inner peace.
Most of us who start trading, want to be a full time trader because it is the only profession that gives us complete freedom and financial independence. But look back & ask yourself what have you gained so far?
Get back your time, if there is a Process there will be a Progress.