One of the most frustrating aspects to most traders is the lack of correlation between the amount of perceived work that one puts into their trading efforts and the general lack of results consistent with those efforts. My simple recommendation to you, if you suffer from this, is not to be so hard on yourself. It really is not your fault!
Consider that we spend our entire lives making mistakes. Parents and teachers drilled it into us we just need to work harder to correct those mistakes. Take our educational process, for example. Assume we perform poorly on a test. We can study harder and prepare better for the next test and we will see improved results commensurate with the effort. Not so in trading!
If you can become a consistent and profitable trader by understanding and using the probabilities that are right in front of you on the option chain and we can be confident of their statistical advantage, then how can we expect to improve our results by more studying?
I trust you accept that the statistical probability of a coin flip is 50/50? Of course, it would be highly unlikely but statistically possible to have either 10 heads or 10 tails in a row. However, if we flip the coin 1,000 times, we would expect the outcome to be very close to 500 heads and 500 tails. And the more occurrences we add to the total, the outcome would continue to get closer and closer to the expected 50/50 outcome.
With the knowledge of known probabilistic outcomes, consider that even if you studied 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, you cannot change the fact that a coin flip has a 50/50 outcome. Then you must question why traders continue to try harder and harder to “figure it out” when they can rely on known probabilities?
My suggestion to you then is to quit trying to find some magic indicator, a hyped up black box system, or join the “guru of the month” club. Anyone or a system that promises lifelong success with guaranteed results might work for some period of time… until it doesn’t work!
Understand that just working harder does not equate to trading success. Work smarter and understand that using probabilities takes away all that indecision.