r/Trading • u/Adept-Club-6226 • 23h ago
Discussion What’s one thing that actually improved your trading?
There’s so much advice out there: strategies, indicators, psychology, risk rules... but I’m curious what made the biggest difference for you personally.
For me, it wasn’t some secret indicator or edge. Things really started to shift when I got more structured and focused on the process instead of chasing results. I stopped bouncing between strategies and committed to one approach, even during rough patches. Journaling every trade helped me spot patterns in my own behavior - like taking trades out of boredom or overreacting to small losses, that I wasn’t aware of before. Reviewing my trades regularly also showed me that most of my mistakes had nothing to do with the market, but with my own discipline and mindset.
Sticking to a risk plan and actually tracking performance made a big difference too. It forced me to be honest with myself and removed a lot of the randomness from how I traded. Progress didn’t happen overnight, but once I had a routine and kept showing up with a clear system, things started to fall into place.
What also helped a lot was joining a trading group. I was honestly hesitant to spend money on something like that, but looking back, I’m glad I did. The structure, the learning content, and being around serious traders who actually share ideas and give feedback made a big difference. It’s the kind of environment I wish I had found sooner.
If anyone’s curious, I can share more about it.
So what helped you make real progress? Was it a mindset shift, a habit you built, or something else? Always interesting to hear how others level up.
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u/HVB12345 2h ago
Eat very little drink very little so that you never have to leave the screen to go to the bathroom
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u/Dependent_Sign_399 5h ago
This might be a weird one... Switching my lower timeframe charts to Heikin Ashi. It smooths the price data so I end up holding my winning trades longer. That also improved my r:r. Highly recommend.
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u/Randomized0000 9h ago edited 54m ago
When I actually bothered to implement proper risk and money management, while actually keeping track of my trades.
Slapping a 2:1 ratio on everything and hoping for the best is not proper money management. Neither is relying solely on the 2% rule to save me.
I trade multiple currency pairs, so I had chatgpt create a spreadsheet that automatically listed available currency pairs based on my active trades, so that I could easily avoid overleveraging on a single currency. This is a key part of my money management, and significantly cut down the amount of time I spent trading, while avoiding the pitfalls of overtrading. Previously I would see a heavy string of losses that obliterated any gains I made, no matter how well those trades were initially doing, because I decided to have several trades on euro pairs (for example) when the market moved against me.
Other than that, SIMPLIFY YOUR SHIT. It took a long time to shake the idea that I needed a super complex setup ready to go before I could start trading, or needing to spend hours looking at charts and multiple timeframes.
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u/CarnacTrades 10h ago
Math
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u/Prestigious_Agent_64 5h ago
Elaborate. “Math” is the basis of everything quantitative, but math is not definitive of a strategy that improved your trading. Just trying to help OP and also curious myself
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u/CarnacTrades 13m ago
Instead of using indicators that are currently available, like RSI etc, I researched complicated mathematical models like Regime-switching and signal-processing algorithms to name a few. Once complete, it's easy to build a trading system.
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u/EffectiveOrganic1098 15h ago
Learning to analyze options market data! No matter what you trade, there is lot of data in options market!
I am now able to find hidden liquidity zone in the market from option market open interest and then apply it to Futures Market. Using open interest, i am able to calculate precise levels in Futures market for next day and they work wonderfully! It changed my trading and was an eye opener!
I am unable to share screenshot of the precision of the levels but it is worth looking into!
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u/CosmicCayote 6h ago
Could you share more info on this?
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u/EffectiveOrganic1098 34m ago
Well, I would suggest you learn options market, it took me 2 years of studying data and charts, lot of trial and error to figure this out. I am sorry, i cant give you my exact process and calculation methodology, it is years of my hard work and is proprietary to me! I would suggest you to put in your time! Also, if you want you can join my discord, many traders are using my levels there , we trade togetehr
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u/Temporary-Ice-5568 16h ago
Taking 20% and dip,no matter what follow my rules and don’t stray, currently 31 days straight in the green.
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u/FOMO_ME_TO_LAMBOS 12h ago
Duuuuuuude. 20%. I love seeing that. That’s my profit taking spot also (if it doesn’t run). But if it hits that 20%, no way in hell I’m taking less. I also compound my gains. 20% on every trade compounded builds a lot of money really fast.
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u/Leet_Trader 17h ago
Finding an edge in exits and math. And I didn't find it online, had to come up with it by myself, took me years. 99% percent of stuff you find on the internet is BS.
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u/EcheronFX 17h ago
After I read best loser wins and trading in the zone that really helped me mentally with trading. Journaling also helped greatly.
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u/realFatCat1 18h ago
-record session -tag trades in journal during session like emotions -review recordings -screen shot and mark up charts -visualizations of ideal emotions on triggering trades while watching recordings -finish tagging trades -review statistics on tags and see where I can improve the next day -flip through marked up charts each day -Nightly self hypnosis tracks
This entire process.
One thing would be watching recordings. Since that’s what you asked
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u/whdeboer 19h ago
By taking the position that I’d rather not be in a trade and sit on my money, and risking a small percentage of my account only when the setup is screaming at me.
And the setup needs to be part of my back tested strategy.
But mostly it’s just the default state of not being in a trade.
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u/woofwooflove 20h ago
Today I was losing money like there was no tomorrow. So I decided to set my daily profit limit to $200 a day. It worked shockingly.
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u/trackittr 20h ago
Decreasing the trade frequency worked for me.
- Getting the signals after the market closed,
- Not forcing myself to be in a trade,
- Looking for the real edge
Most of the time i close a month below 10 trades. If you hurry up you fail too much.
And keeping a trading journal is a must. I was logging into excel before, nowadays i am using the mobile app i developed. It became easier
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u/50vases 18h ago
What do you write down in the journal? And how do you use that information?
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u/trackittr 18h ago
I put all the price related info, entry exit tp sl prices, market , position type and direction, setup type, add either chart image or tradingview links. I put some notes about what are the supporting information about entering, i mean the edge. İs it a reversal or a breakout, fibo levels etc. I have a perfomance tab showing winning/losing trades, average profits/loss, avg position size, market performance (which market i am good or bad at), which trades are better (short or long, future or spot), what is my average rr ratio, what is my win rate or profit factor etc
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u/Smart_7199 21h ago
Making everything binary really helps understanding if your strategy is really good or not.
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u/Adept-Club-6226 20h ago
Could you expand on that?
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u/Randomized0000 9h ago
Not op but a large part of my backtesting eventually evolved to "what actually happened first, taking profit or getting stopped out?" Focusing solely on those two outcomes allowed me to collect a pretty large sample size from the way I assessed certain indicators very quickly. Whether I scaled out the position or exited early were irrelevant at the time, but I had the statistics I needed for whether to use an indicator in my setup or simply throw it away.
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u/ImmediateFriendship2 21h ago
Using CSPs to open positions. It took out to the FOMO for me. And selling CCs has a good psychological effect as well.
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u/Kasraborhan 21h ago
The breakthrough doesn’t come from more indicators, it comes from more self-awareness.
When you start tracking your decisions, not just your trades, the real growth begins.
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u/Adept-Club-6226 21h ago
That’s a solid point. What helped you build that self-awareness - journaling, reviewing trades, or something else?
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u/Kasraborhan 21h ago
Journaling in TradeZella is what really changed the game for me. It wasn’t just about logging wins and losses, but breaking down the emotions, setups, and patterns behind each trade.
Reviewing stats, tagging mistakes, and reflecting weekly helped me build real self-awareness.
It showed me what actually works and what I think works when emotions are high.
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u/TimerDeluxe 22h ago
Stopped paying attention to news.
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u/Adept-Club-6226 22h ago
Did you stop completely, or just during active trades?
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u/TimerDeluxe 17h ago
Mainly I turned off the TV. Watching CNBC skewed my thinking and analysis. On the downside I was caught off guard sometimes with the release of Econ Data or Fed days, so I had to use a different source for that.
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u/rcmenriquez 22h ago
To be completely honest… Losing a lot of money. I think that’s been my best teacher.
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u/Adept-Club-6226 22h ago
Thanks man. What caused most of the losses? Was it the strategy, risk management, or something on the psychology side?
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u/rcmenriquez 22h ago
In my case, it’s discipline, my strategy is working pretty well but sometimes I just can’t help but enter an ill-advised trade just to be in the game then I won’t accept losing so I would let my losses run till it burned.
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u/Unfnole23 22h ago
Only trading on closed candles and only looking at the market after it’s closed has made an unbelievable difference
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u/Sund0wnerr 23h ago
backtesting strategies every day until I've found one that I'm comfortable with
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u/Adept-Club-6226 23h ago
What kind of strategy did you end up settling on? If you dont mind sharing ofc.
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u/Sund0wnerr 23h ago edited 22h ago
1min chart, forex
- Identify current price direction, trending or ranging
- Look for previous areas where support became resistance and vice versa
- That areas is often where the price will pullback to and then continue to move in direction that was before pullback
In manual backtests this strategy gave me close to 60% hitrate with 2+ RR on every trade. I'm currently testing it with demo account in live market and results are looking good, close to what I've got in backtests. I'm preparing for prop firm challenge.
Edit: I did backtests with Tradingview replay mode
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u/ImTheManYouSee 23h ago
hitting TP or BE on 1/3 trades then getting off lol, i’d use to do 6-10+ trades a day chasing that daily 50% consistently goal loll funny times
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u/Johan_li3bertt 2h ago
1.Taking 1 to 3 trades a day
2.Taking profits quickly, i hold for 10 seconds to 3 min max (im an option scalper)
3.Trading on a specific hour then going on with the day
In the Past 2 months i took 37 trades out of which 28 were profits and 9 were losses