The three traits of successful traders we come back to most are discipline, patience and perseverance. None of them is a gift you are born with: they are habits that can be practised and measured. Below is our original 2017 post, then how to practise each trait.
Quick answer: what are the traits of successful traders?
Successful traders tend to share three traits: discipline, meaning they follow a written plan and cut losses as planned; patience, meaning they wait for setups that meet their rules and focus on trading well rather than on money; and perseverance, meaning they keep learning through losing periods instead of giving up or chasing a new system.
The 3 traits of successful traders: our September 2017 post
We first published this post in September 2017. The original words are kept below. We have removed account-balance and return figures, a broker promotion and old link prompts.
There are certain character traits that are crucial to your success as a trader – Luckily, these can all be learnt at any time. Some people believe that you have to be super-intelligent, good with numbers, and that people are ‘natural-born traders’. This is simply wrong.
This was conclusively shown to be false by the same story that inspired me – Richard Dennis’s ‘turtle’ experiment, where he took 14 non-traders and taught them how to trade in only 2 weeks.
The three key traits that are crucial to the success of a trader are shown below.
1. Discipline
As I explained in my blog 3 Characteristics of losing traders most of the traps traders fall into can be overcome with discipline. This means controlling your emotions, and executing trades with a plan. This means cutting losses early, and not giving back all those hard earned profits. This means having the discipline to keep trading through losing periods, and acknowledge that big profit opportunities do not come every day.
Discipline is not easy, and some struggle more than others. As you can see clearly from my story , when I first started off I didn’t have enough discipline at all. But I developed it, and if I can do it, anyone can.
2. Patience
The problem with many new traders is that they are in a rush to get rich. The counter-intuitive nature about trading is the harder you try to make riches, the less likely you are to succeed. For the first year after I started trading, I desperately wanted nothing more than to make money, and I lost focus on what was important – trading well.
This meant I traded positions too large, I looked for set-ups where there weren’t any, and I traded too frequently. It was a disaster.
The moment I stopped focusing on the money, and started focusing on trading properly, the entire situation flipped.
3. Perseverance
Perseverance is what helps people overcome the hurdles they face on the route to growing their account. Determination is what is needed to try out different strategies until you find one that is right for you, and allows you to persevere through losses and continue to learn, develop and grow as a trader.
It is cliché, but success if not a straight path. There will be failures along the way, but you must be able to learn from these and persevere through. I have done my best to share all the lessons I have learned with you on my blog and FREE trading material but it is on you to put the work in.
Why discipline is harder than it sounds
Most traders know they should follow their plan; the hard part is doing it in the moment. Richard Thaler, who received the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, analysed self-control problems with a planner-doer model: the internal tension between long-term planning and short-term doing. Giving in to short-term temptation is one reason plans fail, trading plans included.
The practical answer is to make decisions while you are the planner, before the market opens. Set the entry, stop, target and size in advance, so the doer only has to carry them out. Our guide to the five psychological hurdles traders face goes deeper, and our daily routine for stopping emotional trading turns this into steps. For the everyday side, see our guide to habits of successful traders.
What each trait looks like in practice
Traits are hard to judge from the inside, so we describe what each one looks like on a trading day.
| Trait | In practice | How to check it |
|---|---|---|
| Discipline | Stop set with every entry | Count trades that broke the plan |
| Discipline | Same risk on every trade | Compare each loss with your risk rule |
| Patience | Flat days with no setup | Trades taken vs setups that met the rules |
| Patience | Process judged, not profit | Weekly review before looking at P&L |
| Perseverance | Keeps learning in a drawdown | Notes on one lesson per losing week |
A weekly routine to build all three
- Write the rules down. Use our guide on how to create a trading plan with a fill-in template.
- Fix your risk in advance. A rules-based risk model for every trade stops one bad day from ending your learning.
- Decide when you will not trade. Our list of conditions where we stay flat makes patience a rule rather than a mood.
- Score yourself weekly. Mark each trade “followed plan” or “broke plan”, and run a weekly review of your trades before you look at the money.
Worked example: an impatient week against a patient one
Example: a hypothetical trader has a £3,000 account and risks 1% per trade, which is £30. Their winners average twice the risk, so £60. In one week, only four setups meet their written rules.
In the impatient version, they take those four plus six marginal trades. They win three of ten and lose seven: +£180 and −£210, a net loss of £30, before costs.
In the patient version, they take only the four rule-based setups, winning two and losing two: +£120 and −£60, a net gain of £60. The numbers are illustrative, and a patient week can still lose; marginal trades simply add risk and costs without the plan behind them.
If those trades are spread bets or CFDs, every extra trade is leveraged, so a gap past a stop can lose more than the planned £30. Our guide on how much to risk per trade explains why small, fixed risk gives the other traits time to work.
Common mistakes when building these traits
- Confusing perseverance with stubbornness. Persist with learning, not with a method your journal shows has no edge.
- Relying on willpower. Discipline works better as pre-set orders and written rules than as resolve in the moment.
- Measuring patience by profit. A week with no trades and no rule breaks is a good week.
- Expecting a straight line. Losing runs happen even with a sound plan; see how long it takes to learn trading for realistic stages.
Frequently asked questions
Are successful traders born or made?
Made, in our view. Discipline, patience and perseverance are habits, and the original post’s point stands: you do not need to be a natural-born trader or a maths expert to build them.
Is discipline enough if my strategy does not work?
No. Discipline lets you find out whether a strategy works, because you apply it consistently, but it cannot create an edge that is not there. Review the rules if a fair sample of disciplined trades still loses.
How do I become more patient as a trader?
Turn patience into rules: a list of conditions you need before entering and a list of conditions where you stay flat. Then judge each week by how well you followed them, not by the profit.
How do I keep going through a losing streak?
Keep the risk per trade small so a streak cannot end your account, and write down one lesson from each losing week.
Next steps
Pick the trait your weekly review shows is weakest and work on that one first.
Trading psychology, including the five key psychological hurdles, is where our price action trading course ends, and the basics section is free to start.
This article is for education only and is not financial advice. Trading leveraged products such as CFDs and spread bets carries a high risk of losing money.
