The ups and downs of the trading journey

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I have been studying trading for around 2 years now. But I guess you can cut that in half due to the unfavourable environments or situations like family financial issues or my soul being drained from an unsatisfactory job.

Throughout my journey I’ve experienced all the typical challenges. Buying evaluations failing buy again. Over leveraging on small accounts because of lack of capital, over trading, addiction to charts. You name it.

But also a lot of experiences in flow and following my plan, making profits some weeks, being able to set and forget, last summer I finished in profit of 6-8% on 3 consecutive challenges until eventually not making enough to get free retry.

Alongside this I have always been committed to self development and ironing out all undesirable traits that I’ve picked up from my social connections e:g financial literacy, breaking the cycle, exercise, world views, education bla bla.

Anyway. As I type this I have relocated my life (from London to the coast of west Wales) so my wife can chase her dreams and go to university, in a small town with not many jobs.

I’m at a manual job that is really affecting my self worth. Alongside that I’m currently in a 50k evaluation 6 weeks in and -1% (reducing position size as I lose trades)
I have many worries and usually hold a high level of anxiety. Especially when entering trades or fear of losing because I’ve felt like a failure my whole life. Even though I am not. I’m looking to branch out into other more intellectual jobs but lack in experience and education. And trying to change my perspective and continue in this journey.

I guess I’m just looking for some words of advice, wisdom or possible even just words of motivation. Or even make new connections to fellow traders and keep each other accountable.

Thank you.

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Two years into trading is not very long at all. And it seems you have already made great progress in recognising and eliminating many of the pitfalls that we all fall into. Afterall, we are all pretty much self-trained even if we have attended various courses, etc.

There is no reason to consider yourself a failure and there is certainly nothing wrong with doing a manual job. There will always be those who are doing “better” but there are also those that are doing much “worse”. We all need to just be grateful for what we have and try our best to help both ourselves and others, as you are doing for your wife.

Prop firm trading has its benefits but it is also very difficult because the real account size that you are trading is actually the max stop loss and not the nominal amount of the account. Most prop acc nowadays seem to have no end date which helps to alleviate the time pressure to perform but the need to reach high targets relative to the max stop out is still very demanding and encourages rash risk-taking.

From your story, I would encourage you to forget any ideas of being a full-time trader. It might sound glamorous but it is a huge risk. Even if you achieve some kind of consistency you are only ever as good as your past record. The future will always be an unknown. In addition, the risks of changes in regulations, health issues, etc can end such a career in a flash.

In addition, the pressures of trading for a living means you “have to” achieve an income to meet your liabilities - even when markets are dull. This means you need a lot of capital (even a 6-figure sum) to manage such a career with its ups and downs.

The alternative is to trade for capital gain. There is no other pressure than to try and gain over time. No need for strict targets or deadlines. Just trade when something meets the criteria and only the “A” class trades. Learn to manage risk/exposure and capital protection and you will find yourself much more confident in your trading as things start to work out right.

Just some thoughts. :slight_smile:

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Welcome to the forums, Konekt. My name is Paul.

Thanks for being here and sharing your story. It looks like you’re doing well in my view. You have a job. You’re married and helping your wife achieve her dreams. You’re working on becoming a better trader. You’re someone who is committed to self-development. You’re aware that you need to change your perspective.

It seems like your main problem is your high anxiety and feeling like a failure your whole life. The causes of this can be more than psychological. It might be a dysregulated nervous system. Have you looked into this possibility?

Here’s a YouTube video to introduce you to the topic and what you can do about it if it describes your condition. Polyvagal Theory: The 3 States of Anxiety in the Nervous System - YouTube

I recommend you put trading on hold for now and focus on improving your physical and mental health. Getting professional help might get you better and faster results.

I’m someone who used to have high anxiety and suicidal depression. I got better on my own through studying and applying what I learned, but I still recommend getting professional help. I’m kind of the opposite of you,

I am an actual failure in life. I’m 47. I tried to kill myself. I’ve never had a girlfriend. I’m unemployed. I still live with my mom. But I don’t feel like a failure anymore. I used to feel like I was worthless, useless, and better off never being born, but I feel great about who I am and what I’m doing with my life now.

Realizing that my anxiety and depression were not just in my mind was life changing for me. I needed to do more than change my mind to get better I had to work on healing the trauma in my body and nervous system.

It took me several years to heal because I did it on my own. I think it won’t take you that long if you work with a professional who has had experience helping people with your condition of high anxiety and feeling like a failure your whole life.

Let me know if this was or wasn’t helpful, or if you have any questions. It’s okay if you don’t want to reply.

Feel free to reach out if you think there’s something I might be able to help you with.

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Thank you for your story @playwiththegods. I don’t think you should consider yourself a failure. I don’t think any human being should. The only measure by which we can come to that conclusion is by comparing ourselves with others. But we are each unique in our own way.

We are all very much the outcome of both external and internal factors and from the chance opportunities/difficulties that life puts in our way.

For some people, like yourself, there are hardships to deal with. Other people seem to just drift from one success to another (at least on the surface).

But who we are is what we are on the inside and we are all invaluable creations in our own right. We just need to be at peace with who we are and honourable about the values that we believe in.

Human beings are strange creatures! Just look at the extremes we reach in human achievement and then the depths of destruction we are capable of as a species. It is for each of us to choose what values are important to us as an individual and no one can take that away…

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You already got good and honest advice above.

We are all sitting in the same boat, trying to change our lives through trading. It takes longer than we think. In the meantime we have to keep our mental health. I have problems in this regard too. I can imagine that it must be very hard for you with a job which is not fulfilling.

For me it is very hard to give you advice because I don’t know you personally, but I felt better after I accepted that I will never be a professional full time trader, its to risky. I may be able to make a very good side income. It took so much pressure from my shoulders after I accepted this. I sleep better, I laugh more and I trade better this year, too. I had panic attacks and thanatophobia because I put life on hold until I would be profitable. But I forgot that, to keep a sane mind, I have to live a good life until then, too.

If you want an accountability partner, someone to talk about your problems and trading, you can write me a PN and I will respond. I can keep you accountable. But you have to stop trading evaluation accounts. You are losing to much money. Start a little live account and earn your bigger size.

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Welcome, and hi to all responders who have added sound advice. Fortunately, after three years of trading, I can regard FX trading as more of a hobby that keeps my mind active and aware and makes me happy with my life style, which is the key.

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Thank you for your thoughtful reply, appreciate it.

Interestingly recently been expanding my horizon and peering into other industries. I believe trading was truly the catalyst to the most self evolutions I’ve ever experienced. And trading for capital gain seems to be most fitting for now.

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Deep, honest words. Thank you, i wish you all the best in life. Thank you for the advice.

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What would you say would be the number 1 reason you haven’t quite found consistency or “success”?

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Thank you, thats interesting i will definitely be in touch. you are right. I’ve been playing with the idea that I’m narrowing my view way to much. And like you have explained. Due to putting my self worth onto how well I’m doing in this one thing. For sure leads to sleepless nights, low mood. And this idea of putting life on hold until “i make it” rings so true.

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Thanks @SovoS. I appreciate your kind and profound words that helped me see myself in a better light.

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You’re welcome. I appreciate your honesty and efforts to connect with people here. See you around.

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2 years, wow, after 2 years I think I barely knew how to breakeven and had zero trading strategy, I was still figuring out what a trading strategy was. Some people just ‘get it’ faster than others, for me it was the best part of 15 years before I was consistently profitable, then another 5 years refining a strategy until I was happy with my lot and knew what I had to do and had a clearly defined edge.

Don’t be disheartened, what you’ve already achieved both in life and trading is a success, the mere fact you understand the world of trading is impressive.

The biggest turning point for me was finding a trading plan that suited my personality, I tried for too long to be a scalper or day trading as that’s what all the cool kids were doing in the YouTube videos, once I realised I couldn’t handle my emotions in that style of trading I began looking at other ways, other strategies and instruments to trade.

Number 1 priority, figure yourself out first, can you handle short term ups and downs, do you prefer longer term set and forget with monitoring, get this bit right and the rest will follow.

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It’s an ongoing challenge, particularly keeping abreast of todays’ FX currency pairs. I am experimenting, moving to weekly trending trades because day trading needs constant watching nowadays. Also, I am diverging into the major indices, following tradertom.com

As for consistency, I am in the green as a break even trader who can pay for lunch. And as an aside success for me is being happy.

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