And So The FX Journey Began
When I first started FX trading I was very stubborn and I believed that I was entitled to success straight away.
If I were to come across my blog the first few days I learned about FX trading, I would’ve hated it.
I didn’t want to hear that FX trading was hard work. I didn’t want to hear that the learning process/method development would take time and money. I didn’t want to hear that the level of success I was seeking would take more than 15 minutes worth of study/charting time a day. I certainly didn’t want to read boring articles about risk management. And I most definitely didn’t want to hear that developing a profitable method was just one part of this whole trading thing and that the mind/emotions plays a massive role in trading your method exactly the way you developed it.
BORING. BORING. BORING. I WANT SUCCESS AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS NOWWWW.
During my first week of getting into FX trading, every single time I came across a blog post, forum, or website article that mentioned the things in paragraph 3, I would quickly exit out of it. And I know some beginner traders will do the same thing right about now…
So many beginner traders want the dream straight away without putting in any hard work. The sooner you realise success in trading is made up of all those boring things in the third paragraph, the sooner you will get to where you want to be.
Unfortunately some people will walk away from trading after putting in a few months worth of ‘work’, because they haven’t multiplied their $1000 account a ridiculous and unrealistic amount of times. On the other hand, a lot of people will give up after completely wiping out their account because they automatically assume that one wipeout means they are destined for future trading failure.
I do not believe wipeouts are an excuse to stop and walk away from trading. If you still genuinely want this, you can still study the markets and still work on your method at no cost while you build up your funds again. NO EXCUSES.
How I almost lost a huge chunk of money wanting to jump in too quick.
I remember my second demo account 2 weeks into FX trading (the first demo account was just getting a feel for the platform/pips/lots, etc.). I ended up placing 20 successful trades in a row over the course of 1 week and I remember having plans to deposit a ridiculous amount of money at the end of the next week if I pulled off another flawless week of trades.
I remember thinking, ‘What are all these FX gurus going on about? This is easy!’. Idiot.
Then I got 2 trades wrong (was still profitable) and I freaked out because my ‘method’ (which wasn’t even a proper trading method at all) wasn’t getting trades 100% correct. Idiot. The funny thing was that I was trading stocks as well and obviously throughout the course of a year I would have losing trades/bad calls, but I would still end the year profitable. Different market, same concept… took a little bit to realise that though. Yep, idiot.
The more I looked into this FX thing, the more I realised I had a lot to learn and I soon realised that I didn’t know as much about trading as I originally thought. Turns out the way I was trading stocks was pretty much as risky as you can get. Opps.
I kept reading the same things over and over again, ‘You need a properly built and tested method. You need a very good understanding of risk and risk management. You need to be able to control your emotions so you don’t make those silly trading mistakes’. I barely had any of that… BUT I WAS GOING TO WORK MY LITTLE BUTT OFF TO GET IT.
A weird switch went off in my head. Levels of enthusiasm and determination that I didn’t even know existed inside of me were coming out to play.
I knew that I wanted this more than anything I have ever wanted before in my life, and I knew that I was going to do whatever was required to get me there.
And so the FX journey began…
