What I Would Do if I had to Start Over

It was back in 2019 where I just entered polytechnic (which is something like a mix of college and university) and I was pursuing my Real Estate Business diploma.

During my holidays, I worked a part time job as a waiter in a restaurant, serving tables with food and drinks, clearing dirty plates and constantly getting yelled at by angry rich customers and my supervisors.

My friend who was working with me at that time has been trading forex for a few months now and he told me about it.

“Hey Brad, did you know that you can make money from trading currencies? It’s like trading stocks but currencies, you know?”

“No I don’t…” I replied.

That was the first time I heard about forex trading in my life.

I brushed it off and continued to work because I believed that trading time for money at a proper job is the only way to truly make money. 

Not by clicking a few buttons on your phone.

A few months later, I went to a 2nd hand bookstore in the town area with my then girlfriend and I chanced upon this book called “The 10 Essentials of Forex Trading” and it got me intrigued.

I browsed through the first few pages and it seemed like the previous owner had highlighted certain key points. 

The condition of the book still seemed quite new and it was priced for $12.90 

Curiosity got the best of me so I ended up buying that book.

And also because I wanted to impress my friend like “Hey look I’m trading forex too! Im cool now!”

That is how my forex trading journey started. 

As a broke 17 year old student.

I Became A Profitable Trader After Doing These 5 Things

So if I had to go back in time and start all over from scratch, I would do these 5 things. 

These are the same 5 things that made me a profitable trader and got me to go from a broke 17 year old student to making over 6 figures from trading

1. Follow a set of trading rules

To be successful, you must treat trading as a full-time or part time business, not a hobby or a job.

If you treat it like a hobby, you will not be committed to learning it

If you treat it like a job, it can be frustrating because there is no regular paycheck and sometimes you will lose money.

Trading is a business and it incurs expenses, losses, taxes, uncertainty, stress, and risk

When you lose money in trading, treat it as a business expense

As a trader, you are essentially a small business owner managing your own money so you must research and come up with a strategy or plan to maximize your profits

To treat trading like a business, you need to develop a set of trading rules in your trading plan.

Your rules should answer the following questions:

• What markets are u trading?

• What assets are you trading? 

• How much are you willing to trade with?

• How much to risk per trade?

• What trading strategy are you using?

Once you created your set of trading rules in your trading plan, you must follow them religiously day in day out. 

That is the hard part, which is why you require discipline.

2. Develop discipline

You need to develop discipline and willpower. It is absolutely necessary if you want to become a successful trader. 

The more discipline you become, the more money you wil make from trading.

Successful people are very very disciplined. 

People always ask me where do I get all this motivation from? How am I able to work so many hours every single day and able to maintain such a healthy and fit body?

Choose discipline over motivation.
Choose purpose over pleasure. 

Choose duty over desire.

I don’t feel like waking up at 5am, but I get out of bed anyways because I want to live every day of my life with meaning and purpose.

I don’t feel like going to the gym today, but I go anyways because I want to train my mind and my body to be strong.

I don’t feel like following my trading plan today, but I do it anyways because I know that the markets will eventually reward me for my discipline.

The man who works when he does not feel like it will always beats the man who works only when he feel like it. 

Remember discipline can make you rich.

Discipline is not an option, but a must in trading. 

The discipline required to follow your trading plan. 

The discipline required to use the correct lot size. 

The discipline required to wait for the perfect trade setup. 

Discipline is the only secret to profitability.

3. Accept Risk

Without risk, there is no reward.

Life is only worth living because of death.

If you want to win in life or in trading, you need to learn to accept risk because risk is part of the game. 

Just like how losses are part of the game.

Don’t get me wrong. This does not mean that you should go out there and take random trades and risk your whole account.

What I mean is to take calculated risks.

When you accept risk, you accept that losses are part of the game.

To become a successful trader, you need to keep doing what works and stop doing what doesn’t works, which means you need to repeat your winning trades and learn from your losses so you do not repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Losing money can be a valuable experience if you understand why you lost.

Making money is pointless if you dont understand why you are winning because you can’t repeat it.

You can't understand why you are winning without first understanding how you could have lost in that same situation

So start by changing the way you think about losses and risk and your trading will change itself.

4. Patience is a virtue.

Be like a sniper, not a machine gun.

Cast your bait into the sea and wait for the fish to take it.

Take one good trade, then another good trade and then another one.

Develop the patience to wait for the high probability trade setups.

Preserve your capital so you can take the high-probability trade setups.

Instead of staring at charts all day, what you can do is go on to TradingView and set alerts at the key levels where you want to enter the trade. 

5. Time will tell

Let me get this straight: you will not become a millionaire trader in the 1st year of trading and you might not even make your first $10,000 per month from trading in your 5th year. 

Nothing is ever guaranteed in trading. 

Who said trading should be easy? 

Who said it's going to be fair?

No one.

Trading is supposed to be hard and challenging. If trading is easy, everyone would be rich and there would be no fun in trading anymore

Do not pray for luck or wish for things to get easier when it gets tough.

Wish for the strength and courage to endure it

Stop going into trading with the mindset like “oh I need to make 6 figures from trading this year”

This just makes you more stress when trading and its going to cause u to take a lot of bad trades!

Happy Trading!