The very essence of trading is assertive actions to create alpha. Sometimes, though, the hardest thing to do as a trader is nothing at all. I can definitely speak from personal experience during my trading career that I felt like there were times that I had to trade. Whether it was the urgency to make a certain % or nominal $ gain for a specific measured amount of time in hopes of attracting outside capital or simply to pay the bills back when I first started putting my own small amount of capital at high risk, most of those periods of self-forced highly active trading led to less than desirable results. Trading just to trade with no sound system or methodology is a recipe for disaster in the world of the markets. I read a lot about successful traders and I’m always comparing their beginnings to where they are now or where they were at the pinnacle of their success. Most will tell you one of the worst things that happened to them was they made a lot of money right out the gates and really couldn’t explain how, why, or what attributed to such success.