This week’s question is for both our new and experienced traders.
Did you find that timef rame too short or too long? If you could go back to that learning phase, would you change anything?
I spent eight months learning how to FX trade, but as soon as I went live, I suffered the dreaded emotional challenge that took me a year to resolve. As at today, I now have a solid strategy that is profitable and a very strict process that I follow for every trade.
The issue that every trader will eventually learn is that we only have control over our risk exposure, nothing else that the market throws at us. Which means taking care of our capital, because without it we cannot trade.
I first started learning in 2014. Never opened a real account. Read some articles, watched some videos. I didn’t know any sort of forums even existed at that time 
,The more I searched more I found out articles that said majority of people lose, and there were stories of people got addicted and lost their entire fortune to Forex so somehow I got away from it and pursued other interests.
Then in 2021 I found Babypips and then started Learning properly. Started a demo and later live trading.
For me it was waaaay too long. I wish I started in 2014, the journey would’ve been amazing. But better late than never.
Absolutely Yes. I would’ve searched more and keep at it without getting away after reading few unfortunate stories.
I dont even recall what I had for breakfast three days ago 
. If I attempted to answer the question about my first live trade I’d be lying cause that was yeeaaaaarrrrsss ago.
If I could go back to that learning phase though I’d be sure to find myself a mentor. That would have saved me a whole lot of time and money.
I took my time before I went live. 
I would say over a year? Hahaha. I repeated the school around 3 times and I also took my time testing out strategies on demo. No regrets though! 
It was a fun learning experience. 
Everyone here told me to not rush and that’s what I did!
Interesting! 
I don’t think I’ve seen you mention this before Steve. But if you don’t mind, during that 1 year, did you open any other trade or did you stick to planning how you can overcome the emotional challenge you faced?
Ooooh. I get it. So much could have happened in the years between 2014 and 2021. But let’s just say you got into forex just when you were supposed to. But not counting the years you didn’t trade somehow forgot about forex, how much time did you spend learning and on demo before you opened a live trade? 
I believe this too. I believe in right timing too. Hopefully for my favor.
I opened live 2022 November.
So from 2021 April 8th to 2022 November 14th I’ve been continuously learning every chance I got during that time and continue to do so.
I took my first trade as soon as I opened Forex trading account. Later I opened demo too but its not it. If my money are not on the table I don’t have the desire to learn more. I invested small amount of money to work with and my goal is to double it. Once I double it I will know I mastered Forex enough to put more on the table. So far I am keeping it alive, it’s been almost two years.
I started on 1h time frame but moved up to daily and 4h charts. I usually open 1-2 trades per week. Occasionally I do 3rd but that’s very minimal.
Personally, I wouldn’t change a thing about my learning skills as I am very proud to say that I have not blown that account since I opened it and that is proof that I am doing something right. It’s also a proof that I have still learning to do because I did not double it yet either.
I think maybe a year and a couple months of fumbling around with a demo account. And then a tiny live account I’ve been trading for almost a year. Still not profitable but learning!
I wish I would have opened the live account so much sooner. Get that feeling of putting real money on the line. You can’t really match that on demo.
I continued to trade, but tightening up my strategy and process. Eventually, I reached confidence level with this and therefore I set up a daily trade execution with a T/P and S/L - then closed my desktop and let it run overnight. Now 55% profit without having to sit by a screen all day. First year 50% profit on a small account. This year so far, breakeven on a 3K account.
I sacrifice large potential profits to avoid FOMO, so it’s a slower process, but it works for me. Key is placing a T/P before a S&R zone where losing traders would close or get stopped out. RRR is just guesswork so I never use it.
Great job!
This is where I have trouble. I like to think that NOT sacrificing large potential profits is better, but it really isn’t. Trying to catch every move will likely require bending your strategy, and that’s actually the demise of a strategy–not reinforcement.
I started with a few paper trades then went live in the first month. Only risking between 0.25%-1% on a small account. For me, I know it wouldnt be the same paper trading (for say a year) without any emotional battles at all to deal with. Thats a big part of it, Its easy to pick up bad habbits, or be carefree if demo trading. Its got to be money your willing to loose still.
My first real account was in Binance(Crypto) and I traded directly with real money and sunk many times. (during 5 years)
Then I decided to transfer to Forex and lost again as I came. Then I just did a Backtest for exactly 15-20 days. I’ve seen that it can really be won consistently. (It was my first backtest in 5 years)
Thanks to the backtests, I gained a lot of self-confidence and discipline.
After that, I didn’t lose any for 4 months, on the contrary, I made 10% + 10% profit in the first 2 months. In the next 2 months, my profits fell a little and my business broke down again with a serious loss of self-confidence. And I decided to start everything from scratch. Later, instead of getting better, I started to lose again because I didn’t like the 3-5% profit per month. What a coincidence, my recovery was based on regaining my self-confidence. I must say that I have read all kinds of books that can be read, I have undoubtedly finished over 200 books in this whole process. And 10-15 Courses. (ALL IS A HUGE WASTE!) My advice to my past self would be: don’t read too, try and find the truth by trying! Don’t trust anyone!
I’m still learning , I just start from stage zero
I WAS NEW HERE BUT A FRIEND SHOW HOW TO LEARN TRADING HRERE BUT IT DONT TAKE ME LONG JUST 30 MINTS 
I’m still struggling to open a live account 
The first ever trade in Forex I opened was advised via telephone by a random guy from a random brokerage, like the Wolf of Wall Street.
“Hello mate, open a buy on this pair with this lot, because the house sales will go up and the economy will rise.”
Not a clue what I was doing.
After (by luck) not losing any money and withdrawing the whole amount from that shady broker, it triggered me to learn what could be and how can I do it by myself, while knowing what am I doing.
Babypips.com gave me the foundation of what this game could be and after I became eager to earn my quick money. (epic fail mindset)
If I could go back to the learning phase?
I would focus personally only on ICT, in my humble personal opinion he is what he is declaring himself, the mentor of my mentor.
Lost a lot of time here and there and a lot of money buying people’s “fresh courses” and blah-blah, modernized etc. and when I was desperate and ready to quit, found the @InnerCircleTrader course (online on YouTube) and watch it, I realise that the “fresh courses” and super modernized to nowadays and all this crap from the super mentors with Lambos, are coming from ICT.
By the way for the story, the first broker didn’t make me lose any money, after that, been on demo for about 6 months making only bad habits without a trading plan or knowing what am I doing, and found the funded companies, managed to get funded twice blew them both, still without consistency, but with a funded account and profit split 2 times in a raw, unlearning and releasing ICT method.
A friendly suggestion to new people, if you don’t know wtf you are doing, do not open a position with a single penny of your hard work hours in your real account, do not daydream that you found the jackpot and quit your job overnight and start trading like a lunatics.
Invest time to educate yourself, build a healthy trading plan, make the transition from a full-time “slave” to labour to a full-time trader slowly, do not believe that it will be an easy ride, be realistic with the expectations, do not believe that you will be consistent within a 6 month period or less. (Except if you are a super fast learner, then I pass)
Calculate around 3-4 years to be a full-time profitable trader, OR without building bad any habits (such as accepting that you will have losing days, losing streaks, no overtrade, no revenge trade), following your trading plan, see your MetriX, maybe in about 2 years.
But before starting live trading or buying funding programs, educate yourself.
See trading seriously, and not get a get-rich-quick scheme, I’m amazed myself right now because always I was reading or listening to older traders saying that, and never followed or listened to that advice, I was always forcing myself, to persuade myself that I can do it. Without a trading plan, no rules, no restrictions.
Leave your ego to the door guys.
Wish you are safe and have a good one.
I joined Babypips few minuites ago and this is my first reply to any post, so very warm and pleasing hello to everybody, I am a professional trader and I’ve almost 6 years of experience in the world of forex. I learned about forex in 2017 and I start my journey on my demo account. It’s 2018 when I create a my live account and execute my first trade. If I get a timemachine I change my starting strategies I learned.