As you get older you should get wiser, you also begin to realise that some key phrases you heard when you were younger can apply to any job, hobby or passion you’re involved in. These phrases can also also apply to life in general. “The secret of success is hard work, when the going gets tough the tough get going, winners never quit quitters never win, fall down seven times stand up eight, practice makes permanent, pride comes before a fall”.
These are just some phrases that may resonate with readers, there’s many others which will no doubt have some personal meaning. Many traders often refer to a phrase attributed to the former elite golfer, Gary Player; “the harder I practice the luckier I get”. In our trading profession this phrase takes on special meaning. We know that we can’t predict price on any given day and there is undoubtedly an element of luck involved in trading. We also know that working hard at our profession creates results.
Similar to any other profession or hobby you have to fully commit in order to ensure success, there are no half measures when attempting to obtain success in trading. You might suddenly wake up one day and experience a light bulb, eureka moment in relation to your trading, but that won’t occur until you’ve become a relative expert in your field. Retail trading isn’t a physically taxing process, but it is extremely time-consuming and mentally challenging. Experienced retail traders will testify that trading is always at the forefront of their mind during their waking hours. You cannot switch-off, you always have to be on message and ready to act, you have to quickly learn how to pace yourself. Even if you employ a fully automated trading method and strategy, you have to remain constantly attuned to the markets and ready to act to change in sentiment.
This level of commitment should be realised immediately and you have to adjust your lifestyle accordingly. Even if you’re working full-time for an employer, while trading on a part-time basis perhaps as a swing-trader, you’ll have to radically alter your life in order to adapt to trading. You may have to change your hobbies in order to put trading first. Your evenings and weekends might be spent chart-watching, analysing the day’s calendar events and studying your calendar to establish what impact upcoming events might have on your trading outcomes. You may find hours have passed in an evening as you flick through various time frames, analyse price-action movement while trying to join up the dots of data releases, to understand why price moved at a certain point during the day’s sessions.
Many experienced and successful forex traders will testify that once you’ve discover retail trading and fully commit yourself to it, your life will change. You have to develop a dedication towards trading bordering on a healthy obsession to experience success. As stated many times, there are no shortcuts to success in this business. While every individual’s learning curve takes on an different appearance, you can’t possibly develop a trading edge unless you understand every aspect of what is a highly complex industry and process.
You might enjoy a brief period of introductory success after first discovering trading, but that won’t last if your extremely loose method is based on hunches, knee-jerk decision making and instinct. In order to develop a trading strategy and edge that generates long-term profit, you will have to experiment with many indicators, a multitude of strategies on many time-frames.
Success doesn’t come easy whatever professions, hobbies or interests you’re engaged in. Success has to be earned. However, many brokers and authorities will point to data that the traders who fully commit to trading both financially and in terms of time and those who make preparations to stay the long course at the outset, are those who ultimately succeed.
