Trade Forex

How to Grow as a Forex Trader

One of the questions that goes through every trader’s mind is “when will I become consistent?”. But, like anything we do it’s a process, and it’s not just experience, but education that will lead to eventual success.

Take an engineer for example. An engineer will try, fail, come up with a solution, fail again… and over again until they develop the final version of the product they’re working on. It doesn’t matter what it is, whether a new engine, a new soap dispenser, or anything else that makes life easier for people, the same process exists.

I know this is quite a generic example, but the point remains that you can only effectively execute a process if you have the education and experience in place. It’s equally as applicable to trading the Forex market. You can be trading for several years and still lose, yet after so long you realise that it’s the lack of education in the field that’s costing you money.

So How Do Traders Grow?

Traders will only really begin to evolve once they begin to eliminate preexisting beliefs surrounding the way they see the markets, and the reason that they are even trading. I’d argue that being a trader is one of the simplest, yet most difficult occupation on the planet. Mentally, it requires mental and emotional discipline that simply doesn’t exist in most other occupations.

A trader can have the most robust system in place that is without question profitable, but if their beliefs are not inline it won’t be too long before their trading account shows nothing more then a single zero.

Our beliefs are really the only things that can restrict a trader’s growth. When we refuse to change our beliefs, we only set ourselves up for failure… blaming our system, our lack of additional capital, even blaming other traders. Essentially we’re just making excuses for our own shortcomings.

The Reality of the Situation

The way a trader grows is really quite simple. We expand on our education of how the Forex market, or any market for that fact, works. Then, we apply this knowledge. If we lose a bit of money, that’s completely fine, but it’s important to acknowledge that one loss doesn’t debunk a trading system, instead, we need to give a system a decent sample size before switching methodologies.

A mistake many traders make is that they repeat the same mistakes and bad habits on any and every methodology they chose and expect different results. Then, they jump to a different methodology and repeat the cycle.

I’m sure at some stage most of us have experienced this to some extent. We lose consistently, with whichever system we tried until we realised that the market works completely different to the way we think it does. Then we educate ourselves a little, our beliefs and expectations adapt and then we further develop.

Simply, without a solid framework and education, then you have no foundation to fall on following an inevitable string of losses. And, believe me each and every trader has had them, has them, and will have them again.