I thought I would share a thought I am having these days, in case it can help someone else;

I have been trading for a bit over 2 years. In the beginning I had WILD success, and I mean WILD. That lasted right up to the point where I got overconfident and started to expect the market to give me a certain amount of money every day. Naturally this made me make all the mistakes in the book which of course lead to massive losses. I am sure more than a few people will relate to this.

I am now back at a point where I am winning consistently and I am starting to make a decent amount on a good number of my trades, my winning percentage is where it needs to be, I am profitable on profitly (although I do have one unrealized loss that will set me back)... but I just realized that I am starting to fall back into the same mistakes that I made in the first place and that cost me so much; going in too big, not respecting my Stop Loss "because with such and such pattern the stock has the strength to come back", forcing trades because everything seems to be working out for me...

Spotting the right patterns becomes easy as you have more and more screen time. Timing your entries and exits can be vastly improved by keeping a trade journal where you review your trades. But it is the less obvious lack of risk management and how one steps into a state of overconfidence when everything seems to work out that poisons your trading. 

Respecting your risk management becomes easier with practice, but it still is an ongoing battle. More importantly, it is a battle that you must remember to fight. Paying attention to your risk levels, your position size, your risk/reward ratio... only when your trade is not going great is not enough; it is something that needs to be implemented into your trading routine and you must never forget.