Why do you trade

Why do you trade? You should ask yourself that question and find an honest answer. If it is good enough to get you through the pain of failing over and over and over again, you will succeed in trading, assuming that you actually love it.

Most people want to leave their day-jobs or just want to be rich and drive Lambos, but I think both options are a result of just one state – freedom. To be able to, every single day, decide what you do, when, with whom and for how long. Having the freedom to answer that question, based purely on how you feel about it that day, is what I am after.

Finding the appropriate reason for all effort that is coming towards you, is what will make or break you. If the “why” you define for yourself is strong enough to help you getting up after each failure, you have good chances of succeeding. There will be many failures, probably more than you even expect and it is crucial to get up, analyse what went wrong, learn the lessons that need learning and move on. If your why is not strong enough, you will give up at some point. This is one of the main reasons why 95% of all retail traders fail – this and of course blowing their accounts. They expect to get tons of money in a relatively short timeframe and without too much hassle. It is not impossible, but it is not possible to sustain these gains over a long time period (i.e. several years alt least), otherwise everyone would do it.

Having your motivation sorted our early helps you not only when dealing with failures but also staying consistent. Consistent in your trading and with everything around it – staying in shape, staying mentally fit, developing good habits and dropping the bad ones, not stopping your learning process, avoiding same mistakes, …, the list can go on and on. In general, the why will drive your whole life in the direction you truly want it to go and will eventually give you a sense of purpose.

That’s why.