Timeline for a trading learning curve

I keep reading articles written by long time traders or training people that state that getting up to profitable consistent levels takes some time...as in years.

I find this interesting as I know that I am not consistently profitable even though I might have expected that I might be able to pull it off by now. I keep finding more and more to learn and more and more to get familiar with. Even if I get up to speed on a plan the market is likely to change on me and I would need to be flexible enough to be able to alter my plan to accommodate that shift without losing my shirt in the process.

Start small and increase position sizing in small amounts (although that is hard to do when trading even lots and starting with one, one more lot is a small amount but it is doubling risk right away).

Don't expect profits for months, get to a trading level of breaking even on trades and consider that a good starting point.

As a new trader I could easily be dissuaded from my path of attempting to get into trading seriously without some level of professional training...but I am too bull headed to give in so I persevere. Pro training is expensive enough to be a deterrent itself. Then again, at what point might it have been more cost effective to just take the training in the first place...but then there is no way to know which training outfits are worth the expense unless you have gotten wet in trading and have a feel for what style suites the best.

I'll keep plugging away at my plan.

Today was a very good learning experience. Even though I ended down I ended on a profitable trade that I setup in the late afternoon, waited for the trade to come to me, entered where I wanted and exited close to my target. That one was from a lesson in choppy market trading and breakouts that I knew before but now have more of a handle on some of the indications that a breakout is worthy of a trade. This after playing in the surf too long today though.

Charts in another post later perhaps.

Jeff.