"I'm good at picking when the market turns

so that makes me good at trading." 

Says a struggling trader

Followed by: 

"So I know I'll be profitable if I get help with my psychology."

Look

1. Even though you experience winning trades, if you take trades at every pivot and chase price action, you are coin-flip trading.

2. Coin-flip trading loses overall.

3. Most psychological problems in trading stem from lack of trading skill, such as coin-flip trading

3 steps to stop getting hurt: 

One:

• You're not a bad trader if the market is moving and you don't have a position.

• Profitable traders intentionally let the market move without them being in a trade.

• And they are comfortable doing so. Reasons why are covered shortly.

• So get okay with seeing the market move. It's an easy one to practice. Sit and watch the market move like the clappers, and don't put a trade on.

Two: 

• Recency bias is a behaviour flaw. But how do you know if you suffer from it? That's easy. Have a few winners and start thinking you're a good trader? Yeah, that's recency bias.

• It's the equivalent of seeing red come up three times in roulette and assuming picking red is an overall winning strategy. Except roulette has a negative expectancy for the punter. Over time it's only profitable for the house.

• In work I do with traders, we work on sample sizes of 20 trades. And only review P&L when able to compare several groups of 20 trade blocks. There is one caveat to this, as covered below:

 

Three:

• This third point is the make or break of you as a trader and that's having:A process that protects you

• Playbook trades that are proven money makers week after month after year.

 

Watch 2 mins of how process protects you

==> https://youtu.be/wGc7GPQURnw

Coming back to that caveat...

Blocks of twenty trades get calculated on a per-playbook basis 

For example, the first playbook trade learned is the playbook 101 trade when working with traders.

When block after block shows positive expected value, the playbook trade is good for live trading. 

And then, the next trade is worked on and so on.

 

Here's a visual to help!

The screenshot below shows a list of playbook trades set up in NinjaTrader Order Flow+ (the software included as part of the work with traders referenced)

9 of a possible 30 playbook trades are showing because during training playbook trades are worked on one at a time.

Each playbook trade's performance is measured automatically

However,

It's not uncommon for traders to make their entire monthly bank trading only one - two playbook trades. 

See

You need a process that protects you and playbook trades if you want to get past your trading pain.  Playbook trades put your money to work only when the market aligns to serve you, not the other way around.

This is how you run trading as a successful business. The smartest, fastest, and pain-free path to both is working with a professional trader or trading firm that's developed them.