KNOW Reddit Mentions | ChartExchange

I have blown a few accounts and often find myself doing stupid things like just jumping in early because FOMO mainly, like if I plan on waiting until 8:30, but have the chart up at 7:00 and see a 100 tick move, I get all jealous like, shit's moving without me and maybe it will be too choppy later, so better get what I can out of it now, the as soon as I enter expecting that trend to keep going, it just backs up and then I get into a dangerous game of trying to reverse my trade, it goes the opposite way again, so this time I say I'm not going to react because if I do it will just reverse again, so I wait, but it doesn't reverse, and the <$100 loss I was trying to hug, doubles in a couple seconds and I panic reverse again only to see it finally comes back, but now it's opening me up even more.
First few times I blew I just whip sawed until the AI monitor liquidated me. Second time I legitimately had done my Daily Loss math wrong, so I totally revamped my risk and made a vow not to get whip sawed again. Passed the eval in 28 days, had plenty of red days and was having to grit my teeth and stop if I was up by at least $300. Some days I'd be up by only $100 and have an obscene number of trades, something like 60+. I thought I was making intelligent moves, but I was just reacting to weak moves which is just as bad as gambling, although I didn't feel like a gambler.
My feelings don't matter though, I was losing money like a gambler, so the shoe fit.
I got another account just recently and gambled for 2 days last week with it, again still hadn't realized that's what I was doing. Luck was on my side for day one because I began to whip saw and caught myself, I relinquished to losing, if my PNL was -350 and I just started the account, so be it. I checked over the candles I'd whipsawed through and realized my original bias was dead on, so I made another one, set my trade while price was still at least 30-40 ticks away, I told myself, if it moves the right way, it will eventually fill and if I'm right, this is where it should end up. Then I got up and didn't mean to completely abandon trading for the day, but got distracted and eventually fell asleep. I woke up to a nice big profit. Sweet, I had made the right call.
Knowing i can't always hope to duplicate that, and after giving half of it back on Friday, I set out this weekend to nail down a strategy. I watched a strategy that's not super complicated, but common. It's an ORB. The trader I got it from is adamant about setup and confirmation and at first watch of his videos I didn't really grasp that and thought it was just over complicated drivel like many others I watch. Then I dialed in this weekend and really strove to understand it. Admittedly I still didn't fully get it, but nevertheless I went into replay trading, rewound time back to the beginning of the month, I had written down his exact steps verbatim and I just let the chart go candle by candle until his setup happened. I had some trouble sizing them at first and watched a TP get edged but never taken, another get completely passed under, and another that was way too greedy to be practical, but I just rewound the bars and had a do-over until I got it. Then I stopped reading the notes and was picking out the breakouts without any cues.
Suddenly it clicked. I quickly discovered that for me the secondary priority of the setup was actually my primary priority and then I thought about an indicator that spells out better what I'm using. I slapped it on and tried to incorporate that strategy with my ORB. OMG I found magic.
I am actually excited and can't wait for Monday, I'm not feeling anxious or afraid, not feeling like I used to do where I'm clicking into a trade and wincing, in my head begging, "Please don't kill me today price..."
I honestly can't wait to confidently hit my setup and bank all of those mastery points once it comes out ahead and the market that had mystified me and frankly used me like a cheap whore, becomes my cash printer.
I don't know if I have any advice except, stop thinking you know this shit. Sure fake it til you make it, act as if, all that crap. You don't have to admit you need this advice, but until you KNOW you found your edge like I just did, you're probably going to lose. For those traders who have an edge but just can't continually execute it, I think you need to sit down with your edge and make it yours. I'm betting your edge is really someone else's and there's probably just a small hitch in it to where it just doesn't flow perfect in your mind. once you get over that hitch and make it your own you should feel this overwhelming click of understanding and you won't have days where you abandon your edge because your mind will know in all certainty this is how to make money. The reason you can't stay consistent now is because you haven't made the strategy fit your flow perfectly.
tl:dr
I found my edge last night and EVERYTHING suddenly made sense. I started with someone else's strategy, but had to look at some aspects as more important and combine it with another indicator and now it flows so nicely for me. If you still have any doubts with your strategy or your execution, it's because you haven't made your strategy flow for you so take a hard look at it and make some changes that suit you better. If you need specifics, ask...I don't mind sharing since I get it now, no two traders can use the same exact strategy and enjoy the same exact success.