One of the most detrimental mindsets to a trader is living in could have should have would have land. It’s the magical place where you saw the right trade, felt in your gut it would happen, also played it perfectly, bottom ticked the bottom and top ticked the top. Oh, and played every oscillation in between.
Naturally, we want to be the best version of ourselves. We want to constantly be working to improve our lives, our trading, our health, our relationships. But as the saying goes… “perfect is the enemy of good”.
One of the reasons there are so many trading strategies out there, is that so many of them do indeed work. The other reason there are so many trading strategies out there, is because NONE of them work perfectly.
As traders, it is our job to run as fast as we can away from would have, should have could have land. You will never consistently see the entirety of a move in advance. Even if you top tick it on one time frame, there’s always another time frame you can zoom out to where you miss. We have to move to the land of good enough. Where the part of the move we see is the part of the move we take. Where our exit matches our plan, what we can see of the trade, not the plan we revise in our head when the trade is going our way… or even worse, the plan we revise in our head when the trade is going against us.
Scalpers scalp. Day traders close out at the end of day. Swing traders open up a bit more risk and swing. Each is valid, each utilizes their own time frame, their own strategy, and their own risk management.
Plan how you want to act. Write it down. Know that when you look back on your day, you acted how you wanted to act.
