Author: Justin Werlein & Translation: AididiaoJP, Foresight News
I've been trading for five years. During that time, I've earned nearly a million dollars and am looking forward to crossing that milestone soon. Trading has been one of the toughest journeys of my life so far, teaching me so much—about myself, about decision-making, about my relationship with money, about handling pressure, about how to distance myself from the world.
I'm writing this not to impress anyone, but because I truly wish someone had told me these things when I first started trading. Perhaps that would have saved me years of torment, fewer account blowouts, and fewer sleepless nights of self-doubt.
After countless painful experiences, I'm finally starting to succeed—and the way I did it was exactly the opposite of what I once thought I should have done. This involves multiple levels: trading psychology, strengths-based strategies, and risk management.
But to be honest, what truly changed everything for me wasn't a particular strategy or indicator, but a fundamental shift in perspective. A mental turn, a reshaping of my relationship with money. Let me explain. The Uniqueness of Trading Trading is one of the most misunderstood professions, mainly because it doesn't fit the conventional definition of "work." People often mistakenly believe that continuous action equals progress. But in trading, the opposite is true. The less you do, the better the results often are. This single idea is enough to disorient most novice traders. They treat the market like other things: starting a business, exercising, or learning a skill—always thinking that "doing more" will lead to success. In other fields, effort is visible: the time invested, the number of repetitions, the weight lifted. But trading doesn't follow this logic. The real challenge lies in the fact that 90% of the "work" in trading is sitting and waiting. Waiting for high-quality trading opportunities to clearly emerge, as if telling you, "Now is the time." This creates a paradox: we instinctively believe that the more we search, the more we find. But in reality, the more frequently you search, the more likely you are to fail. The essence of this industry is not in accumulating the number of trades, but in purposefully accumulating high-quality opportunities. The problem is not only "overtrading," but also the mindset that drives people to believe "more will lead to better results." I understand this deeply because I used to be like that. I thought that as long as I worked harder, looked at charts longer, and studied more patterns, I could crack the market code. But this path simply doesn't work. The market doesn't care about your hard work. I often see this scenario: traders staring intently at the screen, tirelessly scanning charts, firmly believing that as long as they work hard enough, the market will eventually reward them. But the more you force yourself to trade, the more likely you are to "see" opportunities where there are none. Then, all the typical mistakes follow: fear of missing out (FOMO), overuse of leverage, chasing market movements that don't fit your strategy… all stemming from an impulse to "do something," rather than patiently waiting for the market to unfold itself. The market doesn't care about your ambition. It doesn't reward hard work, only the right intentions and patience. You can spend countless hours analyzing, preparing, and trying to predict every fluctuation. But when the crucial moment arrives, the only thing that matters is: whether you are in the right place at the right time with the right mindset. And this cannot be forced. You cannot succeed in the market through brute force. What you can do is learn to identify when to act, and more importantly, when to do nothing. For me, trading takes on a deeper spiritual meaning from here. Money is worldly. When you chase it, grasp it, and try to force it to come to you, it will run away. Like holding water in your hands, the tighter you hold it, the faster it slips away. We must understand that to gain true power in life, we need to maintain a certain distance from worldly concerns. If my self-worth is entirely tied to the next profitable trade, the next day I make money, then I will be forever trapped in the hamster wheel. I must first realize that I need to step outside the game and operate from a higher level of consciousness. Viewing Trading from a Game-Playing Perspective Becoming a successful trader involves multiple aspects: psychological aspects, having a superior strategy, and strict risk management. You really need to have a statistical advantage in the market. But this is a lesson I learned at a painful cost: even with a perfect strategic advantage, a person executing the trade can ruin it all due to poor execution. Therefore, I believe that cultivating the right trading perspective is the most important thing you can do. You must treat trading like a video game. Imagine a child coming home from school and playing Call of Duty. He sits off-screen, holding the controller, free to make decisions. He observes the character's actions on the screen and reacts, but he is separate from the character—he is the operator, not the soldier charging into battle. Now contrast this with another scenario: someone who feels truly on the battlefield. Every bullet seems aimed at him, every "death" feels like his end. Many traders have no boundary between their trading and themselves. They are their own trading decisions. Every profit or loss becomes part of their identity: making money makes them feel smart, capable, and valuable; losing money makes them feel stupid, useless, and a failure. But to succeed in this game through strategic advantage and human skill, you must separate yourself from every rise and fall. How? Beware of the "daily validation" trap. First, you must understand that becoming a consistently profitable trader takes time. It's not overnight, not a week, and for most people, not even a year. If you expect to validate yourself every day or every trade, you will be trapped forever. You will make trades you shouldn't, force yourself into trades because you "need to feel like you've done something," and rigidly tie your self-worth to your account's profit and loss (P&L)—a very dangerous situation. Many traders are trapped in "survival mode": feeling like they're on an endless hamster wheel, making a good decision, then a bad one, then good again, then bad again... one step forward, two steps back, in a never-ending cycle. How can someone succeed when their mind is constantly replaying past mistakes and margin calls? Their minds are filled only with thoughts of recouping losses, proving themselves, or seeking market validation. I was once deeply trapped in this: lying in bed at night, unable to sleep, my mind replaying every bad trade. I carried the weight of each failure, as if that was my definition. I felt I had to "make the money back" to regain self-affirmation. That energy—that desperate, clinging, survival-mode energy—is poisonous. When you trade in this state, your decision-making becomes distorted: you chase trends, engage in revenge trading, and over-leverage when you shouldn't… All mistakes stem from operating out of fear, not trust. The power of forgiveness changes everything. This is why forgiveness is crucial in trading. I'm not talking about that abstract, empty feeling of "feeling good." I'm talking about true forgiveness: forgiving your blown-up account, forgiving the stupid mistakes you made, forgiving those moments you knowingly committed. You must let it all go, completely let it go. Enter the market each day as a blank slate. A brand new day, unaffected by yesterday's trades or profits/losses. If you enter today's trading with yesterday's losses, you've already lost before you even begin. If you enter this month's trading with the shadow of last month's margin call, you're not actually trading; you're trying to heal—and the market doesn't care about your wounds. You must be an observer in trading. Don't cling to your decisions, but learn from them. Remain detached, yet present; remain focused, but not desperate. Here's a spiritual principle I took years to grasp: surrender. You must surrender to the desire to control the outcome, surrender to the obsession with money. You must believe that as long as you consistently do the right thing, the results will come. And you must be able to accept that you don't know when or how it will arrive. This is difficult, really difficult. Especially when you're under pressure from bills or want to prove something. But it's the only way out. Trading Journal: An Indispensable Tool This is why keeping a trading journal is so important. It allows you to reflect afterward and ask yourself: Why did I make that decision in the first place? What did I see at the time? What was I thinking? How did the market react to my thoughts? Journaling helps you create a sense of distance. It allows you to detach yourself from the game, reviewing the game like a coach watching a replay. You are no longer a soldier on the battlefield, but a player holding the controller. You can see the essence of your decisions—it's just a move in the game, not an extension of yourself. Journaling also helps you discover your behavioral patterns. Not chart patterns, but your own behavioral patterns: Maybe you always overtrade on Mondays, maybe you always engage in retaliatory trading after losses, maybe you always can't resist adding to your position before a margin call… You can't change what you can't see, but journaling helps you see it.
Scarcity and Abundance: Two Completely Different Mindsets
This reminds me of a fundamentally changing philosophy in my trading: understanding the vast difference between operating under a sense of scarcity and a sense of abundance.
A sense of scarcity says: I must win this trade. I must make money today. I must prove I'm not a loser.
An abundance says: The market is always there. Opportunities will always come. My job is to wait for the right opportunity.
When you operate under a sense of scarcity, you are in a low-frequency, tense state. You are desperate and grasping. And the market—as a mirror of collective human behavior—will respond to you accordingly. You will make bad decisions and attract bad results.
When you operate with a sense of abundance, you trust, relax, and wait. You understand that money flows towards clarity and discipline, not despair and chaos. You must align your intentions with the market's. I cannot impose my ideas on the market. I must first react to the signals the market gives. This is not weakness, but wisdom. The market is bigger than me, bigger than all of us. My task is not to conquer it, but to dance with it. What are you truly pursuing? Reflect on your mistakes in trading; what were you truly chasing? Was it an opportunity that fit your clear framework, or simply the "feeling of making money"? This is the core question: too many traders enter the market subconsciously with the goal of "making money," while the real goal should be "establishing good trading habits." Focus on habits, and money will follow. There's an even deeper question: What does money truly represent to you? For some, money means security; for others, it means status, freedom, or proof that they haven't failed. Whatever it represents, that's what you're really pursuing when you trade. If that pursuit is tightly tied to your self-worth, your decisions will inevitably reflect that insecurity. I had to do a lot of work on my relationship with money. I had to understand that money itself is neither good nor evil; it's neutral, it's a kind of energy. It flows to where it's welcomed and runs away from where it's chased. I had to learn that my personal value has nothing to do with my account balance. I had to separate "who I am" from "what I own." Once I did that, trading became much easier. Because I was no longer trading to "feel good." I traded because I had a proven strategic advantage, and I was strictly adhering to it. The Key Shift: From Results to Process You must shift your focus from the goal of "making money in the short term" to the long-term goal of "cultivating rock-solid habits." These habits will ultimately bring you far greater wealth than you can obtain through forced trading in the short term. The key is understanding: trading success is not about how much money you make today, but about your discipline in consistently executing your strategy. The trap most traders fall into is linking satisfaction with monetary results. But in this game, money is merely a byproduct. You might make money by chance. If your satisfaction is tied to these accidental results, you are paving the way for failure. True trading success comes from the satisfaction you derive from the trading process itself—from the discipline, patience, and the ability to sit still and wait for the right opportunity amidst market chaos. The fewer trades you make, the more purposeful each trade becomes. As you begin to reduce your trading, you'll gradually understand that your goal isn't to constantly interact with the market, but to maintain sufficient patience and clarity so that you can identify and act when the market presents genuine opportunities. Patience is not passivity. A lack of patience is the fatal flaw of most traders. The urge to force action even when there's nothing to do will constantly erode your capital—both financially and mentally. Patience in trading is not passively watching market changes. It's actively choosing not to do anything when no action is necessary. It's being able to stop and analyze when you realize your emotional state is trying to take over, when a voice in your head is urging you to act impulsively: Does this decision align with my strategic strengths? When you free yourself from the need to "constantly act," you gain a different kind of power. You will no longer try to convince yourself to accept a mediocre trade. Instead, you will wait for the market to offer that trading opportunity that perfectly aligns with your strategy, fills you with confidence, and seems to be calling out to you. It is these trades that will lead to your long-term success. The ultimate truth: Ultimately, it all boils down to this: stop trading to make money, start trading to cultivate good habits. Stop chasing, start arriving calmly. Shift your focus from results to the process itself. Every time you sit down to trade, remind yourself of that long-term vision: you are not here to make a quick buck today. You are here to build a trading system that can support you for years, even decades. Less is more. Fewer trades, higher quality. Fewer decisions, clearer thinking. The market is always there, but if you keep chasing opportunities that don't exist, your capital won't stay with you forever. Train yourself to value discipline more than dollars. Success isn't about being in the market all the time, but about being in the right trade at the most crucial moments. When you feel you've put in the least "effort," that's often when you're most successful in your trading. Forgive yourself for past mistakes. Start each day with a fresh perspective. Be the player holding the controller, not the soldier on the battlefield. Synchronize your intentions with the market's rhythm. Manage your relationship with money wisely. Understand that you are not your profit or loss. And remember: you can't force the market to give you what you want. You can only react to the opportunities it offers. Surrender to the results, trust the process, and let it flow naturally. This is the game of trading. This is the realization I gained after five years and countless hardships. Now it's your turn to learn—I hope you can learn faster than I can.
Kikyo
Weatherly
Anais
Catherine