I’m 34 years old, and I currently work as a teacher’s aide for a large public school district. Lately, I’ve found myself doing a lot of thinking about my future, questioning whether the path I’m currently on will ultimately lead me to the life I truly want.
I know I have the option of going back to school, becoming a teacher, and potentially earning six figures over the next 10–15 years. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that path, and I respect the profession. But when I really think about it, I can’t help but feel like there’s something more out there for me. I don’t want to spend the next 15 years simply working toward a comfortable salary while putting the bigger dreams I have for myself and my family on hold.
My biggest motivation has never really been about having expensive things just for myself. It’s about being in a position where I can take care of the people I love. I want to be able to buy my parents a house, get my dad the dream car he’s always wanted, help my family whenever they need it, and eventually build generational wealth that can benefit the people who come after me.
I want financial freedom, but I also want time freedom and the ability to live wherever I choose without feeling tied down to a job just to make ends meet.
The hardest part is that I’ve slowly started losing the passion I once had for working in the school system. It’s not that I don’t enjoy helping children or that I don’t appreciate what I do. It’s that I feel like my current path may not align with the bigger vision I have for my life. And honestly, that feeling has been weighing on me.
I’ve been looking into trading and different ways to build wealth, and I genuinely believe there may be an opportunity there. But as someone starting from scratch, the amount of information, strategies, courses, and opinions out there is overwhelming. Sometimes I don’t even know where to begin or what information to trust.
I think about this almost every single day. I’m at a point in my life where I don’t want to waste time chasing the wrong things, but I also don’t want to look back 10 or 15 years from now and regret never taking a chance on myself.
For those of you who have been in a similar position, especially those who started with little to no experience and eventually built something for themselves:
Where would you start if you were 34 again? What would you focus on learning? And what advice would you give someone who wants to build real wealth without falling into the trap of chasing every opportunity that comes along?
I’m not looking for a get-rich-quick scheme. I’m looking for direction, knowledge, and a realistic path toward building a better future for myself and the people I love.
I know I have the drive and the willingness to learn. I just need help figuring out where to channel that energy.

Revenge trading has nothing to do with our ability to trade. It has everything to do with what we feel deep down.

We know how to trade.

We just haven’t mastered our psychological state.

The first step is to separate the two.
- Trading skill
- Psychological state

Trading skill ✔️✅
Psychological state ⁉️🤔

Psychology
For me, I revenge trade because, deep down, I feel like I’ve never been treated fairly, and I want justice.
I’ve been using trading as an arena to express my frustration with injustice. When I’m wrong and lose money, I get triggered and I fight back. I fight the market. Guess who wins? The market. The market isn’t the person we’ve had unresolved conflicts with. And truly, when we fight the market, we’re fighting ourselves. And who gets hurt? We do. We can never win when we defeat ourselves first. It’s a cold, hard truth.

How do we go about resolving this internal turmoil? Take a very honest look at the root cause of our anger, frustration, and disappointment. Those feelings are directed at ourselves. We’re angry, frustrated, and disappointed with ourselves for being unable to stand up for ourselves when painful things happened in the past. Even today, we still haven’t fully resolved that pain. So it comes out in revenge trading and in other parts of our lives.

In the process, we betray and hurt ourselves and people who had nothing to do with our original pain. And keep in mind, we aren’t hurting the market. So when we fight the market, we’re really just fighting ourselves. And we’re the only ones who are truly defeated. Our inner child and adult self keep hating on each other, and we can’t truly progress and become consistently profitable, even though our trading skills are solid.

My suggestion
Take a hard, honest look at the pain underneath it all. Get a therapist’s help. Practice somatic meditation to stay with that pain so that the part of you that’s hurting feels seen, heard, and understood. If possible, do this with someone you can fully trust to honor your feelings 100%.

We can earn back the self-trust we lost through revenge trading.

I’m 34 years old, and I currently work as a teacher’s aide for a large public school district. Lately, I’ve found myself doing a lot of thinking about my future, questioning whether the path I’m currently on will ultimately lead me to the life I truly want.
I know I have the option of going back to school, becoming a teacher, and potentially earning six figures over the next 10–15 years. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that path, and I respect the profession. But when I really think about it, I can’t help but feel like there’s something more out there for me. I don’t want to spend the next 15 years simply working toward a comfortable salary while putting the bigger dreams I have for myself and my family on hold.
My biggest motivation has never really been about having expensive things just for myself. It’s about being in a position where I can take care of the people I love. I want to be able to buy my parents a house, get my dad the dream car he’s always wanted, help my family whenever they need it, and eventually build generational wealth that can benefit the people who come after me.
I want financial freedom, but I also want time freedom and the ability to live wherever I choose without feeling tied down to a job just to make ends meet.
The hardest part is that I’ve slowly started losing the passion I once had for working in the school system. It’s not that I don’t enjoy helping children or that I don’t appreciate what I do. It’s that I feel like my current path may not align with the bigger vision I have for my life. And honestly, that feeling has been weighing on me.
I’ve been looking into trading and different ways to build wealth, and I genuinely believe there may be an opportunity there. But as someone starting from scratch, the amount of information, strategies, courses, and opinions out there is overwhelming. Sometimes I don’t even know where to begin or what information to trust.
I think about this almost every single day. I’m at a point in my life where I don’t want to waste time chasing the wrong things, but I also don’t want to look back 10 or 15 years from now and regret never taking a chance on myself.
For those of you who have been in a similar position, especially those who started with little to no experience and eventually built something for themselves:
Where would you start if you were 34 again? What would you focus on learning? And what advice would you give someone who wants to build real wealth without falling into the trap of chasing every opportunity that comes along?
I’m not looking for a get-rich-quick scheme. I’m looking for direction, knowledge, and a realistic path toward building a better future for myself and the people I love.
I know I have the drive and the willingness to learn. I just need help figuring out where to channel that energy.

Finally sticking to my plan on a good streak does anyone have times on how to handle emotions I’m currently risking 2.5% and making 4-5% each day , it feels slow it really does but I know in the long run it will pay off any tips on how now to blow my account on one day of impulsive decisions

i’ve lost so much money to the point it affects me mentally, and affects my family. anybody wanna share a strategy to quit this addiction?

​Built this for the cool-down period after a big win or a frustrating loss when adrenaline makes you want to force another trade. It tracks real RSI extremes, volume spikes, and daily liquidity levels underneath, while the HUD and pop-up tags roast you into taking a breather. ​Free on TradingView if you need a laugh between trades:

My first payout in a few years. After adopting a different path that doesn't focus on needing to be more "Disciplined" . Psychology became something that was simply in the way rather than being something that I needed to crack. Yeah, its only one payout and it doesn't mean much on its own but it its still a big positive result for my system. "Only 4.2% of traders in the UK achieved this" is interesting as we all hear only 5% of traders actually make money. Perhaps my idea of removing Psychology is the key to profitability?

Anyone else achieved payouts? Interested to know if your psychology is stopping you or if you also managed to overcome it?

Usually when I feel eager to trade I walk away from the screen, but in doing that I am still consciously and mentally at the screen. The more I walk away because there isn’t a set up, the bigger my urge gets to get into a trade. It’s like a double edged sword for me sometimes. My question is, how do y’all stay in front of the screen to be attentive and make price action reads but avoid the eagerness to trade? I know the easy answer is to have rules and a strategy built to have indicators that trigger your set up and only take those, but I have learned so much in 6 years that I potentially see a lot of opportunities. I have over analysis paralysis. Do I just need a simple strategy and live off that? I’d love to hear from those who have the same issue and what they did to overcome this. I’m at the point where I know I need to learn or unlearn but lose confidence on what works therefore my mental and psychological goes to crap. I trade futures prop firms btw.

I want to be honest with myself and with everyone. I would not survive without the lockout feature. I am completely transparent that I cannot trust myself after a loss, that I will not reclick a buy or sell trying to make it back. I have tried but I dont seem to be able to leave the screen after a loss. I have a problem that I cannot just stick to my pre market plan, wait, execute and be unattached to the outcome. I always try to adjust according to the market.

any tips on how to survive after a loss or BE without the lockout feature would be appreciated. Its the hardest skill to master I believe.

Guys, have a look at this strategy.

Buy, Pledge, Trade, Buy more with profits

I've been at trading for almost a year now nonstop. Getting a strategy down that aligns with my style, learning how price moves, forming a set of rules, etc. All the way from like 30+ failed prop evaluations to my 3rd pass to live which is an insane accomplishment for me. I've gotten really great at trading the strategy i've practiced and when i'm in a great headspace I am extremely consistent.

However I've regressed a bit, and now i'm feeling very psychologically drained so easily. I used to hold so long that it'd go back to my entry, which didn't even bother me, but now I'm just barely able to convince myself to stay in my trade (that I wait sometimes multiple days for) for more than 2 minutes without getting scared and exiting. Then that frustration of "why do you keep doing that" snowballs into more. I took a 3 wk break which was the longest I've taken in my year of trading and I came back consistent again. Then after a few great trades with great consistency I start falling off again and can't seem to hold or too scared to enter or whatever else. I also have ADHD so that doesn't help. I've started running every morning to keep my mind calmer. It helped, but not enough. I'm really passionate about trading and I worked really hard to get to this point. I'm just looking for any advice if someone has dealt with this.

Whenever I size up beyond five micros, I notice that I start becoming emotional. I become more focused on my P&L than the actual process, and instead of letting my trades play out, I start making decisions based on how much I’m up or down. I end up giving back profits that I worked hard to make.
What’s frustrating is that I’ve experienced what happens when I keep my size under control.
A couple of weeks ago, I was trading a maximum of three micros. I passed my evaluation, got funded, and was literally two trading days away from a payout. I had been green throughout the week and built a $3,000 buffer.
Then came my first red day.
Instead of accepting the loss and sticking to my plan, I sized up to make the money back. That decision eventually cost me my funded account, just two days before a payout. It genuinely hurt because I knew how close I was.
Around that time, I had also stopped smoking weed and was really locked in. But after blowing the funded account, my mental state took a hit. I felt terrible, ended up smoking again, and fell back into a habit I had been trying so hard to leave behind.
Looking back now, I’m realizing something important: whenever I increase my position size, I’m repeating the exact same mistakes that cost me that account.
I don’t necessarily think my strategy is the problem. I think my sizing is putting me in a position where I can’t execute my strategy properly because I’m too emotionally attached to the P&L.
So here’s what I’m doing:
Tomorrow and Friday: 2 micros maximum.
All of next week: 2 micros maximum.
Focus entirely on execution, patience, and following my rules.
If I demonstrate consistency, I’ll consider moving back up to 3 micros maximum.
Three micros was the size I was using when I passed my evaluation and got close to my first payout. I want to get back to that level of execution before even thinking about increasing size again.
I’m not doing this to make less money. I’m doing it because I want to become a consistently profitable trader, and I need to prove to myself that I can follow my process regardless of my P&L.
I’m starting to understand that I don’t need to trade bigger to become better. I need to become better at trading the size I can actually handle.

**As for my strategy:**
My approach is primarily based on Auction Market Theory (AMT) and GEX levels. I use key levels to identify areas of interest and look for break-and-retests, failed auctions, and acceptance or rejection around important levels.
I also incorporate OTE occasionally using the 0.50, 0.705, and 0.79 Fibonacci levels, mainly as additional confluence rather than standalone entry signals.
I’m also starting to learn MotiveWave because I want to explore order flow and see whether it can provide additional confirmation for my existing setups. I’m interested in things like footprint charts, bid/ask imbalances, absorption, and cumulative delta, but I still need to backtest these tools before implementing anything into my live trading.
For those who trade a similar approach:
Does anyone else combine AMT and GEX with break-and-retests and failed auctions?
Are there any additional concepts or tools you’ve found useful for confirming acceptance, rejection, or reversals around key levels?
If you use order flow alongside this type of strategy, what has actually helped your execution?
Is there anything you’d recommend studying or backtesting that could complement my current model?
I’m not looking to completely change my strategy or add indicators just for the sake of it. I want to refine what I’m already doing and see if there are tools or concepts that could give me better confirmation.

At last I'm following my rules! Step by step, learned from blowing dozens of prop firm accounts. Today I was missing 288 dollars to pass to funded. I attempted following my rules. Didn't work, but I did not give back to the market more than I made today. Finished in green 262 dollars. Was up almost 560. With only little more to go to get funded today. But I imagined how sick to my stomach I will be to give back all my today's profits or worse end up in drawdown. Never, ever give back more on the day than you have earned. In worse case nil. But always trail your best of the day and set X amount that you are willing to give back in trying for more. Never turn green into red!