The Mistake That Cost Me Two Years of Trading—And How I Fixed It
How Ignoring My Strengths Cost Me Two Years in Trading.
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Two years.
That’s how long I spent trying to force myself into something that just wasn’t me.
I kept telling myself I needed to be patient. Everyone said patience was the key to success in trading. So I sat there, watching the market, trying to force myself into the mold of a swing trader.
And for two years, I struggled.
I was frustrated—not just with my results, but with how unnatural trading felt. It was like I was fighting myself every step of the way. Draining.
One day, after endless self-analysis, I realized the problem wasn’t the strategy. The problem was the mismatch between who I was and how I was trading.
I didn’t need patience. I needed a trading style that fit me.
So, I made a switch. I moved to day trading.
The moment I transitioned, everything made sense. I didn’t change my strategy much. I was looking for the exact same pattern, just on a lower timeframe.
Trading suddenly felt natural.
Eventually, I even moved from the 15-minute execution timeframe to the 5-minute, which amplified my results and my enjoyment of the process.
At the time, I had no clue why this felt so right—I just knew it did. My intuition was telling me that this was the path that aligned with who I was, and I followed it.
But this intuition is not always easy to follow, especially when there’s noise coming from social media and internal doubts. It becomes difficult to know what’s right for you.
It wasn’t until recently, when I took the CliftonStrengths assessment to know more about my way of operating, that everything truly clicked.
In today’s post, I’ll break down how understanding my strengths completely shifted my trading approach. You’ll learn how I went from struggling with a strategy that didn’t fit me to creating a process that plays to my natural strengths—and how you can do the same.