The Woo-Hoo Timeline of Progression is a simple graph that explains the trajectory by which most traders make progress to trading for a living. There is a myth that progress as a trader is linear, meaning we see a trader make small gains, day after day, until one day they have morphed into a full time trader who can support themselves by their trading profits alone.
In reality, the progress of a trader towards trading for living looks more like this:
In other words, it's all about long periods of plateaus (the Ho-Hum times) interrupted by Woo-Hoo moments and breakthroughs. Many traders don't succeed because they give up during the Ho-Hum times. Their system is "not working like it used to," or "My schedule has changed," or "I am just breaking even and not making progress." At times like this, traders start to do all kinds of terrible things to try to force the progression upward, and that invariably fails.
The Ho-Hum moments are when traders lose hope.
The Woo-Hoo moments are when a trader finally understands that risking less on every trade means that long-term, he will make more money. Or when a trader finally admits that he cannot trade from the 5 minute chart, but instead needs to look at longer term setups because he has a full-time job. Or when he realizes the power of backtesting, or being disciplined in all areas of his life, or of keeping good records of his trades.
