Playing The Long Game In Trading

Knowing how to trade and knowing how to trade consistently are two different skills.

If you’re a trader, you’re already a bit crazy.

But no one prepares you for the insanity of the long game.

You spend years perfecting your setup, sharpening your mindset, developing your trading plan,

And finally it works.

You’ve developed the ability to WIN.

You close that beautiful profit. Admire your MT4. Post your screenshot on social media.

However, something’s off. Something feels weird…

You can’t put your finger on it.

Then it hits you:

I gotta do this all over again tomorrow.

I could tell you the long game is about having the same daily routine.

I could tell you it’s about diving into your data to figure out when your edge performs worst.

I could tell you it’s about developing mindfulness to recognize when you’re about to take a C- setup.

And while all these are important, there is only one pillar that is truly at the core of the long game.

Time in the market.

No matter how much you feel like you suck at trading,

There comes a time when the frustration reaches a boiling point.

You’re done falling into the same trap.

You get sick when you break the plan again.

You’ve had enough of sabotaging your OWN trading success.

When you reach that boiling point, it hits you.

When you speed up the process, you actually delay it.

The trades you want to take to reach your goals faster are not the trades your profitable future self would take. This creates a vicious cycle:

• You want to get profitable, so take any trade that presents itself to get there faster.

• The mediocre setups eat away at the profit of the quality setups.

• You get stuck for weeks, months, years.

• You get frustrated at your lack of progress, take more mediocre setups and dig yourself into a bigger hole.

Lack of progress isn’t the problem. You are the problem.

To play the long game, you need to sacrifice. You sacrifice your need to win today, so you can win the month. You already know how to trade. You know what your good and bad setups look like. But your definition of “success” is holding you back.

Success isn’t winning today

Success isn’t making money today

Success is building the skill of avoiding low probability setups

Success is closing the charts the moment you recognize there’s no opportunity

Success is knowing you don’t find the good setups, they find you

Success is waiting for the quyality setups to jump off the screen

Success,

Is playing the long game.

Thank you for reading this week’s newsletter. Talk to you soon :)

- Atal

P.S. If you enjoyed this read, why not subscribe? It’s free. Forever.