TradingBlog

SUCCESS is in great demand for all traders who take a first step in their career. Most traders feel unsure and uneasy initially. They expect success overnight failing to understand that trading needs patience. Any beginning trader does not plan on failing. Many beginning traders never consider failure as one of the possible outcome of their attempt. It is only on the first loss or first series of losses that traders begin to feel a sense of urgency and desperation. And to add fuel to the fire of losses they see their money rapidly disappearing before their eyes that can be even more distracting.

Beginning traders and many experienced traders believe that their short-term objectives must immediately be met failing to understand the benefits of trading in patience which is actually better. On one hand you are urgent in your feelings that you must succeed. This sense of urgency causes you to put a lot of pressure on yourself. That pressure can cause you to make some serious mistakes when a trade is going against you. On the other hand, you subconsciously know that trading can’t be all that easy. You know from reading, studying, and hearing about other traders, that even though you are experiencing losses, if you are persistent, ultimately you will become a successful trader. Others have done it, why not you?

If you want to succeed in this business, you have to be tolerant in trading. Because sometimes trading successful takes a lot longer to achieve than imagined when first looked into becoming a trader. Some traders take many years of disappointment before they finally become successful. Only those few who never give up tend to achieve success. All businesses experience losses. I cannot think of a single one that can escape them. Yet losses in trading seem to loom larger than losses in other businesses. I believe it is because in trading the responsibility for losses all fall on you, the trader.

In the long-term, any individual trade is not very significant. At any point in your trading career you have to avoid placing too much importance on the outcome of a single trade. You must not allow yourself to feel badly about yourself when you lose, or feel good about yourself only when you win. Strive to keep your emotions and your self-image separate from your trading. Doing so takes effort, but it is an effort that pays off in the long-run. If you allow yourself to feel confident and successful only when you win, losses can eventually destroy your image of who you are. Keep in mind that even the most seasoned traders have losses and went through a test of patience of trading.

An experienced trader knows that in trading, there are more things beyond your control than there are things within your control. Realizing that trading is an art form, and not rocket science, helps you to have the right perspective on each single trade. When patience is coupled with proper risk and trade management, losing or winning on a single trade is not going to make or break you.

Instant success has mental and emotional advantages, especially for a beginning trader. Realize that it requires patience to become a successful trader, just as it can take long to become successful in any other business. You need time to build your trading skills. You need time to acquire experience in the market. Experience and skill ensure that, over the long term, you will become consistently profitable. Until such time as you are able to paint the big picture, it is crucial that you manage risk and manage trades so that what happens with a single trade has little impact on your account balance. The experience of trading over the long-term allows you to learn how to deal with adversity and to build up the skill-set you need to trade in a variety of market conditions. Time also enables you to develop as an intuitive trader, one able to “feel” the market.