Hi there pro traders,
If you could give your younger self advise, what would it be? What will you do differently? What will you do more of? What will you do less of? What is your best Aha moment?
As a successful trader, what advice will you give your younger self?
I would have loved my older self to beat me with a frying pan continuously and say…GET YOURSELF A %&@#$ MENTOR!!!
2 Likes
@THE_GOATE 
haha yes! I am bad at asking for help to avoid making myself look stupid. Make the journey so much harder and lonelier.
I guess that is one of my bad traits I am working on, to ask for help, hence the post, so many great people here willing to help.
Did you end up finding a mentor?
You hit on a key point there which is greatly underrated and which affects me even today. That business of loneliness as it relates to trading. It would have helped immensely if I had someone to sit with and bounce ideas off of. There is only one person I know personally who MIGHT be making a real go of it in forex and he lives about a half mile from me. He is always questioning me and showing off figures on his phone but I have my doubts about him. His thing is the boom index. My real friend who encouraged me to return to trading has jumped off the wagon so it’s just me myself and I these days. Interestingly enough for over a year I was trying to find someone to teach what I know about forex so the knowledge wouldnt die with me but surprisingly NO ONE was interested. I have stopped trying.
Long story short I didnt find a mentor personally but I grabbed on to the coattails of a few people without them knowing and hitched a ride. A mentor is nothing more than a teacher who helps you to avoid wasting a lot of time and money.
Why do people who can learn tennis on their own, or already play a high standard of tennis…go out and hire tennis coaches???
5 Likes
My biggest breakthrough was order flow moves price action. Then it’s a simple way of placing a T/P before a zone where losing traders close their positions or get stopped out.
To my younger self I’d say get a career at a top financial trading firm. And read liar’s poker book.
2 Likes
Honestly, I am not a successful trader; till now I’m learning & improving my trading skill! But now I know the value of chart reading skill; so it should be my advice!
2 Likes
@steve369 order flow is really good when you have mastered to recognize it. I am still learning but haven’t come to it just yet.
I think I’ll get on it sooner if it helps with setting TP as I am too greedy with my TP. I get really good setups, but I always end up setting my TP too far away, I know this is a problem, but I still keep doing it lol
It sounds like a good book I will definitely give it a go, thanks for the recommendation.
I know what you mean, I have spent so much on education even though you can get free access to training etc, I mean with some of the education I have done, it gives good structure which speed up the learning process a little.
I am not a good trader yet, although my younger self will think I’m pretty good haha. If you still want to share with someone what you know feel free to send me a message, I like to learn new things, if it is in line with my study plan (I mean I want to be good at what i have studied before moving on to something new)
Thats how I also got started again, my friend started trading and got me back into it. I traded for about 6 months back in 2016, blew up my account (AUD11k, ikr WTF 
) and just let sleeping dog be, I wish I continued and learned from my mistakes back then. I regret not continuing trading, I guess I had to mentally mature first haha
This time round I am way more serious to start my trading business and be a full-time trader.
1 Like
When I was a new trader, then over trading was my number one problem; so must say don’t over trade!
2 Likes
I would tell myself to open a smaller account and trade only micro lots with huge SLs for the first year so I could watch trades play out without FEAR of losing.
Fear of losing causes losing.
7 Likes
This is very true - causes rabbit in the headlight syndrome - been there and done that.
2 Likes
I definitely fell victim to overtraining lol 
. Luckily it was only on a demo account.
It is so easy to overtrade when you aren’t aware of your emotions.
Oh. I forgot the biggest one!
Do the exact opposite of everything you think is right.
This one would change lives.
4 Likes
Simple.
- Backtest to find a system. Does not have to be complicated.
- Once a position is open, based on your system rules, forget about it and leave it alone (very hard to do).
- If the system you discovered from the backtest works, you will be in profit in a couple of months.
But you have to be reaslistic about how much profit you will be in…
5 Likes
Backtest and forward-test everything because that is what matters. Plus, be realistic.
Having a realistic plan and working according to that is essential. Many beginners focus only on profits and not on being realistic, which is risky.
2 Likes