This is the most frustrating thing about my trading right now. I’ll spend 30 minutes the night before marking supply and demand zones on the 4H chart. I’ll identify the A+ setup. I’ll know exactly where I want to enter.
Then the market opens and I do something else entirely.
The pattern is always the same: price approaches my zone, I see a candle that looks like it might reject, and instead of waiting for confirmation on the 1-minute, I either enter early or — worse — reverse my thesis entirely because “it looks like it’s going to break through.”
The fix I’m implementing is mechanical:
- Pre-mark levels with alerts. Don’t stare at the chart.
- When the alert fires, switch to the 1-minute chart.
- Wait for a rejection candle with above-average volume.
- Only then enter.
If the candle doesn’t come, the trade doesn’t happen. Period.
The hardest part isn’t the system. It’s trusting the system over my in-the-moment instinct. My instinct is wrong often enough that the numbers don’t lie.