How many punches does one have to take before he gives up? If I could, I'd sit there taking as many as possible and keep refining my strategy until I get it right but I seem to have lost my edge and my capital is only finite and if I sit there doing the same thing over and over again, every day, I'll lose everything I have and won't be able to live to fight another day which is what this is all about. Starting tomorrow I will begin a paper trading account and work on being consistent until I regain the little self confidence I have left.

I've never felt so bad and insecure about my future in trading like I do now. I felt like I was making consistent progress and thought I kinda knew what I was doing until last month. It all started with one very bad day (Which I remember feeling horrible about), not because I had a red day (those are part of the game and I understand that you gotta lose money to make money), but rather because of undisciplined I was and how I couldn't stick to my plan and rules. I remember thinking: "jeez.. you can be working your arse off for a whole month and making really good progress but all it takes is one bad trade and you're back to square one, just like that". It's really hard to make money, yet so easy to lose it. So, after that bloody red day of Thursday the 4th, I spent all month thinking about bringing my PnL back to at least 0, not even in positive territory. And I did... eventually. Slowly buy surely. And sure enough I made another stupid mistake not too long after that. The next day, I made another useless mistake and turned a small 2 digits loss into a huge 4 digits loss, and then made another mistake, and another one and another one (oh Dj Khaled would be proud!) and I've been making them every day since. After the huge 6k loss that I had, it had me thinking.. Why is it that my losses are bigger than my winners? why am I always scared and hesitant to take a loss, yet in a hurry to take profits? Why don't I let my winners run more? So I analyzed my past trades and have decided to be trading off the 5mn chart instead of the 1mn one. But the scalping strategy that used to work for me on the 1mn chart cannot and does not work on the 5mn one. Now I am down almost 12k and have less than 13k in capital (and net worth), I have no other job or qualifications to do much else and I'm getting older by the day .Basically, I'm depressed because for the past year trading has been my life and I have sacrificed everything for it just to realize that I am not as good as I thought I was and that I can't help but mess up at times). I am not writing this to play the violin for myself, but I need to feel like I am on the precipice to kick myself in the butt and pull myself together. Also, I use this page as a trading journal where I monitor every major thing that has had an impact on my trading (and writing is therapeutic). To wrap up this feedback sandwich, I know I am capable of making it big in this business but only if I treat it like one, take things seriously, stay focused and disciplined. 5 years from now this small downhill may not have even mattered but I do have to stay alive and live to fight another day. Which is why I have decided to put my discipline to the first test which will be to not trade (with my real account) untill I can have a full week of consistency and regain some self-confidence. What I will do next: 1. Analyze all March trades and figure out what my mistakes were, how they could've been avoided and how&if I could've made money trading different setups. 2. Come up with a trading plan and stick to it 3. Make a workout and dieting plan

Feeling beat down... Going to step away from real trading for a while and focus on analyzing my mistakes and paper trading

Just don't lose money.... and cut your losses quickly