In futures trading every day is a new day. You must put the failures of yesterday, and particularly any feelings of disappointment and inadequacy they cause, behind you and focus on what is happening in the market today. Dwelling on your losses will only erode your self-confidence and cause you to start second guessing yourself, your system and your decisions. Start down this road and you might as well throw in the towel. Successful futures trading is 90% attitude. Learn from your losses and move on.

D.H. Lawrence wisely said: “If only one could have two lives: the first in which to make one’s mistakes, which seem as if they have to be made; and the second in which to profit by them.”

A futures trader must live both lives simultaneously. He must learn from today’s mistakes to profit tomorrow. Think of it this way: Each mistake, as long as you learn from it, is one less mistake you’ll make in the future. Since there are a limited number of ways you can lose on a trade, each loss becomes a building block toward solid future success. You’ll make mistakes and suffer losses as a futures trader, especially as you’re learning the ropes. But by discovering the lesson in each loss, you will increase your power as a trader. Each loss then becomes a brick in the growing pillar of your success.

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The real lesson I learned from my Dad is “How do you know if this will work unless you try.” Lesson: pull the trigger on the very next trade you see and keep a log of what physically happened and how you felt at each stage.

As you’re building your system and your trading approach, you have to expect to lose sometimes. Losing sends you back to the drawing board. You analyze, study, rethink, figure out why you lost. Keep a log of your losses. Every half dozen or so, sit down and search for the common denominator. When you find it (and you will), stomp on it! Losses should galvanize you to find the faults in your system and destroy the demons in your approach.

You can’t afford to let your losses bog you down. You must consider each loss an opportunity to improve. Losing is not your enemy; it is your teacher. Learn from your losses. Loss is the foundation of future success. Ask any successful man when in his life he felt most alive, most virile, most passionate and he will tell you it was when he was starting out, when he was young and struggling, when he first turned failure into success.

We celebrate success but do not learn from it. We learn from pain, frustration, confusion, uncertainty, inconsistency, disappointment — all forms of loss. You must suffer the agony of defeat before you can achieve the joy of victory! By experiencing all the different ways to lose, futures traders learn how to win.

The perfect system is a myth. Even the most carefully planned and flawlessly executed trade can lose. And there will be times when you actually win with what you know was a faulty approach. While winning and losing are important, they cannot be the driving force behind your trading approach. You cannot base your trading tactics on a single win or loss. Tactics are best based on patterns, say the results of 50 to 100 wins or losses.

Don’t get me wrong. It is important to learn from your trades. That’s why I recommend keeping a detailed trading log and taking a snapshot of each trade for future study and reference. You may need to make some adjustments to your system as you develop it. But traders who second guess every trade don’t have faith in themselves or their system and are doomed. Futures trading is not for the timid and unsure. If you are going to succeed as a futures trader, you must first and foremost have faith in yourself and your system. Professionals know that winning is in the details. If you concentrate on proper execution of the individual components of the trade – timing, entry, money management, exit, etc. – winning will take care of itself.