Ah well!, looks like this is where we should all come to after graduating the Babypips School of Pipsology. Iâll Just share some of the things Iâve learned along my own Journey.
1. Accept that youâre worse than 70% of the real trading community:
Youâre new, which means by extension, until you start making consistent profits, youâre part of the statistics, you belong to the 70%+ thatâs losing money on a consistent basis.
2. Never avoid recording your trades, itâs the Lab you need to analyse your trading performance
3. If youâre good on Paper/Demo, youâre still worse than 70% of the real trading community:
You may not have gone life yet, in which case youâre worse than 100% of the real trading community because experience is even more valuable than your balance sheet (itâs an insurance against future losses that getâs better as you grow). This could be either good or bad, but make it good by letting this fact humble you and prevent you from thinking youâre good just because you nailed a few (or many) good trades on the demo.
4. Your first job is not learning how to make money trading Forex, itâs learning how to protect your capital:
Making money is the end goal yes, but in a field where most lose, you should focus on how to be better than the losing 70% first, then the rest will follow.
5. Your second job isnât learning how to make money trading Forex, itâs finding a provable edge over the market:
An edge in that it letâs you win enough times to be profitable, and provable in that you can repeat the process back in time and into the future.
6. Your third job isnât learning how to make make money trading Forex, itâs building a trading strategy around your edge.
Your strategy is required to work effectively by taking the best advantage of your edge, and ensuring you, The Traderâs profitability over the long term. This requires a number of things in sync:
(i) Optimal Leverage
(ii) Optimal Win Rate
(iii) Optimal Risk vs Reward
(iv) Positive Expectancy (a guarantee that youâll be profitable in the long run according to your trading style)
7. Your fourth job isnât making real money trading the Forex Market, itâs making paper money with your trading strategy for a ârepresentativeâ length of time:
Representative in the sense that you have practiced it long enough to confirm that it works. (a guarantee that youâll be profitable in the long run according to your trading style)
(i) Find a good broker (that has good enough Spreads, Commissions and Swaps to give your strategy the best chance of survival)
(ii) Trade demo with your strategy and this broker for as long as the strategy requires. There are strategies that require up to a year of implementation to guarantee profitability, there are some that require only a few months, practice your demo wisely.
8. Your fifth job isnât putting down your full trading capital on your live trading account:
Itâs putting down a âRisk Capitalâ, a small percentage of your actual trading balance to see how your strategy performs, Demo versus Live.
9. Only if youâve passed steps 3 - 9, go live with your full trading capital and trade like a Pro.
Note that you should always have a âshut offâ loss percentage of your account where you stop trading if things get bad.
9. If you lose more than your strategy dictates per any length of time, Stop trading and go back through steps 3 - 8 again.
10. Enjoy the fruits of your Labor 
