My journey as a trader so far has been a lot like Po's (Kung Fu Panda) journey toward becoming a dragon warrior. Often times I have been a bumbling fool, making uneblievable mistakes.
I was encouraged to start trading by a local brokere who referred me to some articles online and showed how x,y or z had made a killing. Initially I started out as an investor, having no clue about trading, my broker was the one who called me and asked to buy this or that (and to hold on

) and as you all can guess, what a disaster that was

I quickly lost a couple of lakhs. I vowed never to trade again. So
mistake no. 1 Taking calls from broker!!
A couple of years later, I was in between jobs and the trading bug which lay dormant reared its head. Like Po I was clumsily trying to trade and learn, someone directed me to TJ, after a bit I landed in ST Da's Stochastic thread, it was Greek and Latin to me, being brand new to Charting

D if I only I had known then that charts will rule my life and time for the next few years!! - I think I may not have become a trader really), ST Da was rarely visiting TJ at that time I think, anyway searching for him I found TSF and there my actual trading journey began.
I looked around there and everything was a bit hard to understand - naturally cos I had arrived there a few years late and there was so much to learn. Since I went there looking for ST Da, I started reading the SWIFT thread (I think most TSF ers will know this method!) I was hooked into SWIFT and made a thousand mistakes may be!! so from next post I will start with the mistakes I made in SWIFT.
Oh before I go to the next post, let me write
mistake no. 2 I had already committed. Jumping into trading without understanding how deep a hole I was jumping into

I had no idea about the amount of time (in years) that it would take to succeed and the amount of information and practical experience one needs to gain before success.