What is the true enemy on the road of trading?

As a short-term participant, I want to discuss this from that perspective.

Many people say they have lost money, but in fact they have never truly calmly reviewed their trades. They haven't discovered the patterns between each loss, nor accurately identified the clues before losing money. It's like crashing into a wall while driving but never watching the surveillance replay.

What is the most terrifying mindset? Telling yourself that you can make it back next time after losing. The word "risk" essentially means loss. Taking on risk means you must be truly prepared to accept losses. Most people are too obsessed with making money and underestimate losses. But what is the reality? The money you can make is theoretically unlimited, but the money you can lose is limited—that is, your principal.

Here is a very important cognitive reversal: don't use your principal to make money; use profits to make money. The market is an infinitely deep well, and you can't compare an limited principal to an infinite market. The true operating logic should be like this—your principal is like the ignition key of a car; it’s just the starting device, not the driving force. The real driver of your account is the potential profit the market can generate. The principal is actually not that important.

Does the market have a Holy Grail?

There is a harsh reality: when you buy at a certain price, the other side is sitting there doing the same thing—shorting, even smarter. The market always moves in the direction of least resistance, but that doesn't mean there is no resistance—on the contrary, resistance is everywhere.

Even when the bullish trend is fierce, it’s not a straight line of ten or more bullish candles. Most of the time, there is a mix of bullish and bearish candles, with rises and dips intertwined. Why? Because even in an uptrend, there are people shorting and taking profits. If I buy with floating profits, I will take some profits during a gentle upward move, and only decide to fully exit when the trend becomes particularly fierce or extreme.

The logic behind this is simple: the market always has both bulls and bears; at every price point, some are opening longs and others opening shorts. Everyone’s level of understanding isn’t that different; there’s no need to be overly confident or to belittle oneself.

True trading wisdom is about finding balance in these seemingly contradictory situations.