Some of these may surprise you, but others may not surprise you as much. But if you want to get off on the right foot here are my suggestions for you.

Exercise

Get off to the right start on the day with a bit of exercise.

Even if you go for a walk, start each day by doing something. There is a proven link between exercise, wellbeing and brain function. Each day, it should be the first thing you do ahead of anything else. All my best ideas come first thing in the morning when I exercise without distractions and a clear mind.

Make the time to do it; there should be no excuses.

Embrace losses

With a tremendous sense of irony, too many people blow their trading banks to avoid a loss. Losses are part and parcel of trading.

Profiting long term is all about getting a positive expectancy; therefore, expect losses and account for them. After all my time in the market, I still lose about 2/10 races on the markets. Losses tend to occur for reasons you can’t control and are inevitable; account for them in your expectancy.

Don’t judge yourself by others.

I’m often guilty of making people do this, but not by design, of course!

I still get a huge buzz when I pull in a decent result, and in an industry stuffed with misleading claims, I’m always keen to show that I do this. When I go for it, that allows me to pull in something special.

But of course, the results you see are years of experience and knowledge compressed into a few minutes, usually with more significant stakes than the average person is using. That said, the stakes I use are generally a lot smaller than most people think. Even a small bank can yield good results if you do more than one trade.

Everybody has a personal journey through the markets, so don’t reach for the unattainable. Keep things simple and do them well, within tolerable limits. It will improve your trading.

Don’t buy ‘systems’

Doing this for a living is rare, doing it on a massive scale for years, even rarer. But there is always an active market for people who sell systems for a living.

Imagine your journey through the markets, like travelling into the Californian mountains during the gold rush. You know the Gold is there, but you are not sure where. However, there are loads of map sellers who also don’t know. But they will sell you a map anyhow.

For that reason, 99.99% of the stuff you can buy will be completely useless. It’s also a competitive market, so people will outdo each other to promise much but deliver little.

So invest that money in exploring the market yourself, and don’t waste it on something that only exists to extract money from you. Post on the forum for views on systems and processes, and you will get an honest answer. Somebody has probably got a copy or has seen its contents and can comment on it for you. Don’t look at ‘review’ sites. They are generally there to get you to buy. Avoid ‘reviews’ that don’t use a direct link, as it is probably affiliated.

Winning isn’t profiting.

This is something that always catches people out.

If you tell me you want to win 99% of the time, I can show you several ‘systems’ that do that. If you tell me you want to avoid something that only wins 5% of the time, you may be turning down a winning system.

The rate at which you win does not dictate your profitability. It’s your expectancy.

How much you win, how often and how much you lose and how usually determines long term profitability. With a high strike rate strategy, you can frequently lose but still lose in the long term if your loss is too big or comes in too often. It’s perfectly possible to create really impressive daily P&Ls or even over the week. But it’s much harder over a month as the full range of outcomes reverts to mean.

Focus on trading profitability, not just winning.

Don’t set specific targets.

I expect to get something each week, but I never know how much. I don’t care, and that’s the perfect way to look at things, with a long-term lens.

I know what would be a good and bad week, but I don’t specifically target it in a narrow fashion. That means I don’t end up chasing it, and I focus purely on what is in front of me, good or bad. I’ll often avoid the bad entirely because of that.

I don’t look at my P&L during the day; I just trade as best I can on each market. If I do that, it will all balance out in the long term.

If you focus on your individual results, you will find that they tend to influence your next trade. From a psychological viewpoint, that’s a disaster. So please don’t do it.

It’s all about the long haul, not the next trade. So don’t cave into the emotional rollercoaster that this brings. Just chip away and do your best with what is in front of you and you will do fine in the long term.

Get your new year off to the perfect start

The ideas I’ve shared may appear straightforward, but their true strength lies in their simplicity. They result from years of experience, countless trial-and-error sessions, and continuous refinement. By distilling the concepts to their core principles, I’ve tried to ensure they remain both accessible and powerfully effective in practice.

I hope you get some use from them!