The inspiration for this article came from the famous football coach Vince Lombardi.
Put your faith in the basics. You don’t have to have great entries and exits but you do have to have good money management. Good money management will win more often than not and preserve capital. Every trade boils down to doing the things you do best and doing them over and over again. So it is doing the basics and repetition of the basics over and over again without making mistakes that makes for the win. There are only 5 or 6 big trades a week and you have to make them to win big. You will get many small wins and hopefully fewer small losses but it all comes down to the execution of the basics Execute the basics and the rest will follow.
Why stick to basics, because you never know when the big trade is about to happen and because when that big trade does happen you need to be trading at the top of your game. Only a consistent standard of excellence will allow you to survive and prosper or when you face a little fear, greed, and frustration in your trading you have to be at the top of your trading game. You have to think clearly move quickly and effectively overcome your weakness, fears and stay in the game. The trader that controls his emotions and fears controls his destiny.
Money Management is the name of the game in trading. The better you manage your trades the greater your chances of making the big bucks. Define the turf on which you chose to compete stay on the offensive don’t fall back to defense. That means to protect profit with your stop losses and money management and don’t wish you were out of a trade that is going wrong trying to minimize a loss on a bad trade
By the time the big trade comes along you don’t have that much to do. The trading plan is in place and you are prepared to execute the plan. At the end of the day you will have made successful trades or you haven’t.
During your study and practice time you need to deal with poor money Management and other mistakes because if you don’t you are licked before you start. You need to keep going and you will win.
Trade to jump on opportunity. If there are a small number of big trades during a week you need to be trading at a high level of excellence in order to take full advantage of those opportunities. Be prepared for all circumstances and act with the confidence that comes with preparation. There are trades that seem like there is no hope to make a lot of money but with good money management the absence of greed, fear, and emotion a hum drum trade can be turns into a successful trade by being confident and prepared. You don’t have to have text book trades just win them the best you can. Play for the big ones but take any win you can get. And celebrate all the wins equally esthetically.
You don’t win without traditions. This is to say you don’t win without winning habits. If you are trading for something greater than yourself you are more likely to follow the rules and be accountable for your trades.  Trade on tradition, tradition motivates. Trade on with winning habits, winning habits motivate. If you do not have traditions or winning habits make some up. Celebrate when you reach certain levels of profit or a consecutive numbers of winning trades. Give yourself something that you can display and remember those levels of achievement and realize that you are trading for something bigger than yourself.
A winning trader is simply the trader that finds the winning plan that works for him. He finds a winning combination of indicators and trading habits. When the market open and the trader starts to trade he learns if he has put together and developed the winning combination. The successful trader is one who puts the trade in motion and gets out of the way of the trade. He lets it develop and follow the plan.
Winning big may not be all that you had hoped for. We strive to perfect our trading so we can win with less struggle and increasing ease, but the strange thing is that it’s not the easy win we seek but rather the difficult struggles to which we really look forward. We struggle to improve ourselves to be the best. We want to win but winning is not the only thing. If we could take a pill so we would win every trade most of us wouldn’t take it. The struggle is the thing.  If we took the pill it would sap the elation of winning and deepen the despair of losing. The good trader is particularly vulnerable to these highs and lows.
Understand the dangers of winning. If the wins come to hard you may become demoralized. But if winning comes to easily it will be harder to motivate yourself because you will expect more and more of yourself. What is your personal plan after the big win.
Winning: trade to win, set a high standard for yourself and keep it in front of you. On your wall on your monitor or in your trading plan where everyone can see it.
Try to win all trades but trade by the rules. Trades are consistently successful only because there are rules and trading plans. Trading without rules would be a trading disaster.
Trade by and execute the basics and the rest will follow, wait for trading opportunities if there are only a few big trades in a week you have to be trading at a high level of excellence to take advantage of those opportunities. Look for the big trades but take any win you can get. Celebrate, trade on tradition (good habits) tradition motivates. Understand the dangers of winning, what is your plan after the big win?
The successful trader does not do what is right once in awhile but all of the time.  In trading only 15 to 20 percent of the traders do things right all the time. the other 80 or 85 percent are taking short cuts looking for the easy way and cheating themselves. You have an advantage if your trading plan haunts you when you are tempted to break a trading rule. It says to you, “you know which way is right which way are you going to do itâ€.