I have been working on my novel these past few days — that is where the time went.
Waiting for a setup is difficult. But waiting between trades — while a trade is already open — is something else entirely.
When I first started trading, every time I placed a trade I would constantly watch the price. Checking once or twice is fine. Doing it every few minutes does nothing for the trade. But knowing that did not make it easier. When a trade was open, focusing on anything else felt almost impossible.
I lost a lot of chess games during open trades. Games I should have won easily. I would be sitting at the board but calculating my P&L instead of chess variations — running through what the trade was doing rather than what my opponent was doing. My mind was never fully on the board.
After a while I noticed how much time I was wasting and I decided to change two things. I still do both of them to this day.
The Two Things I Changed
First — decide your stop loss before you enter, and make sure you are comfortable with it.
Not a random number. The market decides where your trade is invalidated — that is where your stop goes. But your position size decides whether you can actually live with that loss. If your technically correct stop means risking more than you are comfortable losing, do not move the stop closer to feel better. Reduce your position size instead. Moving the stop is how traders get stopped out on valid setups and then watch the trade go in their direction without them.
For me, once I knew exactly what I stood to lose and I was genuinely at peace with that number, I found myself checking the chart far less. The uncertainty was what kept pulling me back. Once I removed the uncertainty, the pull weakened.
Second — close all the tabs and leave.
Go for a walk. Start a workout. Do something that requires enough of your attention that the trade cannot follow you. For anyone new to this, I think walking is one of the best places to start — you do not need to concentrate on it the way you concentrate on chess or reading, but it is enough to break the loop of opening the chart every two minutes. And if you have been sitting at a screen for hours, the movement helps anyway. The point is not walking specifically. The point is physically leaving the screen and occupying your mind with something else.
These two habits did not work instantly. At the start there was always a small internal fight before I could actually step away. But over time the fight got smaller. That is what habits do.
The thing I had to accept — and it took longer than I expected — is that once a trade is open, it is no longer mine to control. I have done what I can. The stop is placed. The target is set. What happens next is the market's decision, not mine. The only thing left for me to do is let it play out.
You do not need to watch a trade to win it. You just need to have made the right decision before you entered.
Bye for now — take care.
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