For me, profit is the main motivation for most traders. It's not the only key to long-term success. The often overlooked but crucial factor is risk management (this is very important), without this, even the most skilled trader can lose everything.
Managing losses wisely ensures you survive long enough to enjoy the gains.
Sometimes, due to the motivation of maximizing our profits as much as we can, we tend to forget exercising risk management and set some potential limits as a trader. I know these things are often overlooked, not realizing that success for long term, whether it’s simply investing or trading, cannot be completely realized if we are not serious on applying them to our lives.
Success can be short term or long term. If we want it to last longer, at least risk control and management should be seen as essentials towards achieving success.