Many young people begin investing with the mistaken notion that a single big idea can make them rich. For some, the big idea is stumbling upon an investment that provides a 1,000-to-1 return. For others, it’s a technique that provides sure-fire investment decisions, or an investing course or guru that promises instant riches.

If you ask investors who have a few decades of successful investing behind them, however, few if any will credit their success to any one investment or investing technique. Instead, most will talk about the value of everyday qualities like patience, consistency and a healthy sense of skepticism—in short, the kind of qualities that bring success in all aspects of life, not just investing.

These qualities help you apply our three-part formula for investment success: invest mainly in well-established, high-quality companies; spread your money out across the five main economic sectors; downplay or stay out of companies that are in the broker/public relations limelight.

Patience plays a crucial role. All too often, investors buy a promising stock just as it enters a period of price stagnation. Even the best-performing stocks run into these unpredictable phases from time to time. They move mainly sideways in a wide range for months or years before their next big rise begins.

If you lack patience, you run a big risk of selling your best choices in the midst of one of these phases, prior to the next big move upward. If you lose patience and sell, you are particularly likely to do so in the low end of the trading range, when stock prices have weakened and confidence in the stock has waned.

Invest in your Financial Future for FREE Learn everything you need to know in '9 Secrets of Successful Wealth Management' for FREE from The Successful Investor. Secrets of Successful Wealth Management: 9 steps to the life you've always wanted, before and after retirement.  I consent to receiving information from The Successful Investor via email. I understand I can unsubscribe from these updates at any time.

Stock trading advice: Stick with the plan when risk is at a peak

Consistency is important too. You can’t succeed by applying our three-part formula three years out of four. If you try to do that, you run a serious risk of abandoning the formula when risk is at a peak. That’s when our formula serves you best. That’s when failing to adhere to a sound investing approach can do the greatest harm to your net worth.

You might say that one key to a long and profitable investing career is to win by not losing. Stick with our three-part investing approach. Resist the temptation to act on impulse, emotion or tips. Stay out of investments that require extraordinary luck or timing.

Economic problems come and go. But in any reasonably free economy, the long-term stock market trend points upward. To succeed as an investor, all you really need to do is find a low-risk way to cash in on that trend during the good times, and avoid losing all your gains and capital during the inevitable setbacks.

COMMENTS PLEASE—Share your investment knowledge and opinions with fellow TSINetwork.ca members

If a beginning investor asked you how they could make the most money in the shortest possible time, what would your answer be? Let us know what you think in the comments section below. Click here.