Certainly one could argue that some traders lose because they don’t understand enough about the markets and therefore they usually pick the wrong trades. As reasonable as this may sound, it has been my experience that traders with losing attitudes pick the wrong trades regardless of how much they know about the markets. In any case, the result is the same– they lose. On the other hand, traders with winning attitudes who know virtually nothing about the markets can pick winners; and if they know a lot about the markets, they can pick even more winners.
If you want to change your experience of the markets from fearful to confident, if you want to change your results from an erratic equity curve to a steadily rising one, the first step is to embrace the responsibility and stop expecting the market to give you anything or do anything for you. If you resolve from this point forward to do it all yourself, the market can no longer be your opponent. If you stop fighting the market, which in effect means you stop fighting yourself, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you will recognize exactly what you need to learn, and how quickly you will learn it. Taking responsibility is the cornerstone of a winning attitude.
– Mark Douglas, Trading in the Zone
