You Can't Build an Edge by Trading Dynamics
I think one of the biggest mistakes in trading is confusing market understanding with having a trading model.
The market is dynamic. Context changes, liquidity changes, sessions behave differently, and no two trades look exactly the same.
But your trading model shouldn't be equally dynamic.
You need a setup with clear, repeatable rules. Something you can test, trade, and measure without reinventing it every time you open a chart.
Develop a setup → test it → take it to live → collect enough data → refine it only when the data gives you a reason.
The problem is that many traders, including me in the past, constantly switch between strategies. One month it's structure, then liquidity, then sessions, then order flow. Every new trade gets a new explanation.
And eventually you have a problem:
What exactly are you measuring?
If every entry is based on a different interpretation of the market, you can't objectively determine whether your model has an edge. You may be good at reading price, but you don't have a stable process whose expectancy you can actually evaluate.
This also creates problems psychologically.
When you don't clearly know what your setup looks like, you don't clearly know what a bad trade looks like either. After a losing streak, the boundaries become blurry. You start changing rules, forcing trades and justifying decisions that previously wouldn't have qualified.
A defined model gives you reference points. You know what qualifies, what doesn't, how it performs over hundreds of trades, and what a normal losing streak looks like.
I'm not saying a model should never adapt. Markets change, and refinement is necessary.
But there is a difference between refining a model and rebuilding it every time the market looks different.
That's why I don't think "I trade liquidity" or "I trade sessions" is enough on its own. Those are concepts. There are dozens of ways to apply them.
The goal shouldn't be to find a trade in every situation.
It should be to find something you can define, repeat and measure — then trade it long enough to know whether it actually works.
Because understanding why a trade makes sense is not the same as having statistical evidence that your process has an edge.