During my course work with my trading mentor Jason Stapleton (http://www.triplethreattrading.com/) it was engrained in my head that the most important rule of trading was not to go broke. The second most important rule of trading was also not to go broke. I remember him always saying that "as long as you have a chip and a chair, you have a way to make money."  I bring this up now because yesterday I was stopped out of a few trades for breakeven and it reminded me of some situations I faced when I first began trading live money.

When I first started trading my main objective was to make money.  If a trade lost or ended up at break even, it was a fail to me.  Of course I understood and was fully aware that I wasn't going to win every trade, nor did I expect too, but at the time I wasn't as comfortable emotionally handling loss after loss, unless I had a crap load of wins beforehand.  However in present day it's an entirely different story.

Losing trades no longer bother me, losing days no longer bother, and losing weeks no longer bother me. One thing that helped me obtain this mindset is focusing solely on my equity curve.  If you don't know what an equity curve is please look it up. But in brief, it's a line graph that keeps track of the amount of money in my account and how it changes on a trade to trade basis (or week to week, month to month, however you plan on customizing it).  Recently I have begun to look at my equity curve just as if it were a chart of a currency pair. I treat my equity curve as if it were any other trend.  I look for impulse legs, support, resistance, all of that good stuff, and as long as I continue to make higher highs, and higher lows, then I'm on the right path.  This is what has helped me to stomach some of drawdown periods. I know they're coming and as long as they don't break structure, I'm still in my uptrend.  It's really hard to explain without actually seeing and equity curve but if you Google the words: "Equity Curve" you will be given plenty of examples. 

Using an equity curve gives me a much better view of how my account is progression and it allows me to set mental checkpoints of where I want to go next. Instead of rushing and saying I want to go from a $5,000 account to a $10,000 account in one month, I now look at it as going from say $5,000 to $6,000 then back to $5,500, then up to $6,500 in a manner like that. So now I'm in no rush and I can visually see how trading isn't a get rich quick scheme, rather a slow grind upwards. 

For more of an inside look at trading visit my tumbr blog at http://iambusiness.tumblr.com/




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