It has been almost exactly two years since I started trading, and to mark the occasion, I’d like to share my story. I started with a simple goal: replace a chunk of my income by trading a few hours a day. At that time, I had a full-time job, a family schedule, and a stubborn belief that discipline could beat noise. I knew I needed proper trading education. What I didn’t know was how long the road would feel before things clicked.
How I Began
My first six months were a grind of small wins and bigger losses. I’d catch a strong opening drive one day, then give it back the next by chasing a pullback that never came. I kept notes, but they read like a diary of second-guessing and FOMO.
By month six, the numbers told the truth. My win rate hovered near 34%. My average loss was larger than my average win. I risked too much per trade. My profit factor (profit divided by loss) sat at 0.8. That profile ends accounts. That’s the profile of a trader who doesn’t last.
Months 1–3: Set the Baseline
After I saw that changes were needed, I slowed down and treated every day of the next three months like a lab. I traded micro contracts and tiny share lots and collected data like it mattered more than money. It did.
I focused on four things:
- One market: S&P 500 micro futures (MES) to learn auction rhythm and structure.
- One setup: Pullback to a clear intraday level (prior day high/low, overnight high/low, or opening range).
- One risk rule: Fixed stop-loss orders based on structure, not emotion. I set a dollar figure I would lose if a trade failed. Call this a “risk unit.” Example: if my risk unit was $25 and my stop was 5 points away, I sized it so that one stop-out cost $25.
- One journal: Screen captures before and after each trade with notes on thesis, entry, exit, and errors.
This showed me where I actually lost money — late entries, moving stops, and trading out of boredom.
Months 4–6: Patch the Holes
Many traders think they need more indicators, but in most cases, they need to focus on making fewer mistakes. To do that, I wrote a pre-market checklist that fit on a sticky note and taped it to my monitor.
First, I looked at the bigger picture. Not code words, just common sense:
- Is price generally trending up or down today?
- Which two levels matter most (yesterday’s high/low, the pre-market high/low)?
- What is my “if-then” plan? For example, if the price moves back above the pre-market high and holds for five minutes, then I’ll look for a pullback to enter long. If not, I pass.
- What is my stop? What is my first target? If I can’t answer both, I pass.
I set a daily limit of three trades and a daily loss cap of two risk units. If I hit the cap, I stopped for the day. That rule alone cut my worst days in half.
Month 7: Mentor Enters
This is where the breakthrough started. I paid for a trading coach and committed to doing every exercise like a student who wanted a grade. Mentorship helped me skip months of trial and error. Real trading mentorships do four things well:
- Shorten the feedback loop: You don’t wait a month to learn what you’re doing wrong; you hear it this week.
- Focus on context: You learn when not to trade, which lifts your averages more than any shiny setup.
- Keep score with numbers: A good coach asks for win rate, average win/loss, and drawdown — not adjectives.
- Hold you accountable: You show your journal, you get notes, and you apply them the next week.
If you want to learn trading with limited time, outside eyes can speed up the process — especially when they bring tools you’ll actually use every day.
What Changed First
We started by removing clutter. Fewer lines on the chart. Fewer time windows. Fewer impulse trades. Then we locked in a few rules I could keep even on tough days.
What the coach helped me master:
- Simple market view: Check the hourly chart to see the general direction. Trade in that direction unless the price clearly flips.
- One A-setup: Enter on a calm pullback after a strong push, with a small, logical stop just beyond the recent swing.
- Risk rules: Risk a quarter to a half of a percent of the account per trade. Never move a stop farther away.
- Targets: Take some profits when price moves twice as far as my stop (that’s “2R” in trader talk). Let a small part of the position try to reach a larger target if the trend is healthy.
- Time window: Focus on the first 90 minutes after the open and the last hour of the day. Avoid the slow middle unless news creates a clean move.
What I removed from my strategy:
- Indicators that fought with price
- Midday boredom trades
- Adding to a losing position “because it’s a level”
- Goals based on hope rather than structure.
How I Chose the Mentorship
I picked the trading mentorship program from WR Trading because its structure matched my reality: focus on a few high-risk, high-reward opportunities, trade 1–3 hours per day, and track results like an accountant. I also liked that WR Trading had simple tools — simulators, calculators, and clear rule sets — that kept me inside a repeatable box instead of a toy store. Midway through my second year, that box became a scaffold for growth.
I wasn’t looking for hand-holding. I wanted someone to say, “Here’s where your process leaks. Fix it this way.” That’s what I got.
Months 8–12: Build the System
Once we simplified, we added pieces that compound over time. Think of these as tools on a small belt.
- Position size calculator: I embedded a calculator in my journal. I chose the stop based on structure, entered the stop distance, and the calculator told me the share or contract size for my fixed dollar risk. No more guessing.
- Expectancy math: Expectancy tells you what you make on average per trade in “risk units.” The idea is simple: If your win rate is 50%, your average win is +2 units, and your average loss is −1 unit, your expectancy is (0.5×2) − (0.5×1) = +0.5 units per trade. I tracked this monthly. First month with the mentor: +0.23 units per trade. By month five: +0.55.
- Risk of ruin: Using my win rate and average win/loss, I ran a basic risk-of-ruin calculator. With smaller risk per trade and better trade selection, the chance of blowing up the account dropped under 1%. That made scaling feel safe, not reckless.
- Simulator reps: Any change to my rules got 50 practice reps in a simulator before I touched live money. If a tweak couldn’t pass in practice, it didn’t earn a place in the plan.
- Five-box checklist: Before entry, I had to tick five boxes: market direction, key level, entry trigger, stop location, and first target. If any box felt weak, I passed. Passing kept more money than winning.
- Weekly review: I exported fills, clipped ten screenshots (five winners, five losers), and wrote what the market did, what I did, and what a better version of me would have done. I changed one small rule per week — never three.
By month twelve, I didn’t feel trapped under a ceiling. I had a system that made sense even on days I felt tired or anxious.
The Numbers That Proved It
Data keeps you honest. I tracked my stats monthly and averaged them for each period below. “Risk unit” means the fixed dollar amount I chose to risk per trade. As risk went down and trade selection improved, the curve smoothed out.
Here is a clear summary of the key metrics across the four six-month blocks.
| Metric | Months 1–6 (Pre-mentor) | Months 7–12 | Months 13–18 | Months 19–24 |
| Win rate | 34% | 46% | 52% | 54% |
| Avg win (risk units) | +1.4 | +2.1 | +2.6 | +2.8 |
| Avg loss (risk units) | −1.1 | −1.0 | −0.95 | −0.9 |
| Expectancy (per trade) | −0.20 | +0.35 | +0.55 | +0.62 |
| Profit factor | 0.8 | 1.4 | 1.7 | 1.9 |
| Max drawdown | 28% | 12% | 9% | 8% |
| Risk per trade | 2.5% | 0.5% | 0.35% | 0.35% |
| Trades per week | 18 | 10 | 8 | 7 |
| Share of A-setups | 22% | 48% | 61% | 68% |
| Average time in trade | 7 min | 11 min | 14 min | 16 min |
The main lesson: I didn’t chase a perfect win rate. I aimed for bigger average wins than losses and fewer, better trades. Cutting risk and cutting noise made that possible.
Year 2: Scale with Rules
The second year was about doing more of less. I scaled from micros to minis only when my rolling 90-trade expectancy stayed over +0.5R and my max drawdown stayed under 10%. If either broke, I cut the size.
I added three guardrails:
- Equity step-downs: If equity fell by 3%, I stepped down size one tier.
- Weekly loss limit: Stop trading the week at -5R. This saved me from “comeback Fridays.”
- Monthly audit: If expectancy fell below +0.25R, I paused all scaling for a month and focused on A-setups only.
I kept the time commitment to 1–3 hours per day. That constraint forced me to wait for my pitch instead of inventing one. And I stopped competing with full-time screen watchers. Patience became a position.
Resources That Helped
You don’t need the exact stack I used. You need a small set that you will use daily. Keep it boring and reliable.
- Platform with alerts: Clean charts, easy order entry, and price alerts so you don’t stare at candles all day.
- Paper account/simulator: For 50 practice reps on any new rule before you go live.
- Calculators: Position size, expectancy, and risk-of-ruin — built into a simple spreadsheet. Numbers, not gut feel, should decide size.
- Journal: Screenshots before and after each trade with a sentence on the plan and a sentence on the result. Tags for setups and mistakes.
- Checklists: One pre-market, one pre-trade, one post-trade. If a checklist grows past eight items, cut it back to five for clarity.
Midway through year two, I added a few focused items from WR Trading — most helpful were the quick size calculator and a simple simulator that made extra reps easy to log. The tools didn’t place trades for me. They made it harder for me to break my own rules.
To Sum Up: The Ceiling Was Me, Not the Market
In year one, I wanted a better market. In year tw,o I built better habits. The biggest boost didn’t come from a new indicator. It came from a clear plan, smaller risk, and steady review under a structured trading mentorship. The math improved first. Confidence followed.
If you feel stuck under an invisible ceiling, start with the lever that moves the math the most: risk per trade, number of trades, or quality of setups. Then add one tool that forces discipline. Growth shows up when your rules make good choices easier than bad ones.