Trading is not Easy, Treat it like a profession!

Trading is not as easy as many fake gurus are publicising on social media and youtube. Title like “make quick money with trading” “learn trading in just 30 mins” ‘easily multiply your money” are all hoax. 90% traders fail in the market not because they are wrong it is because they thought trading is easy and they can do it quickly. But when they are not able to do it they can’t accept it and still continue to do the same losing actions and end up losing all the capital and blowing their account.

I am not denying you can’t double your money in a day with trading but what i am trying to tell you is you require a lot of knowledge, practice and patience to be able to do that. Don’t expect you will be profitable the very first day or week or even a month when you start trading in the market.

According to me, trading is a profession which requires proper learning, continuous practice, good mentoring, right mindset and a lot of time investment.

No one asks a doctor to start making quick money before completing the degree.

We don’t expect 1st year LLB students to win cases and earn loads of money from them.

Then why do we expect the trader to be profitable within 1 month of learning how to trade?

Trading may not have an official degree but it is still a profession and requires all the efforts and time as any other profession.

We are expecting way too much and too early results from this profession and that is actually messing up with our mindset and psychology.

Let us understand this by comparing trading and doctors as a profession. I am taking 5 parameters for better discussion :

1. Proper Learning – To become a doctor we have to enrol in a proper university/college and learn everything properly in a step by step process for an extended time period 4-5 years. Similarly there are a lot of trading institutes and individuals teaching and training trading setups. To be a professional we require proper learning from a recognised place and not anywhere or any random unrecognised college. So it is important for us to properly learn and invest enough time in learning to become a professional trader.

2. Continuous Practice – Can we become a practicing doctor by just reading the theory and not actually practicing it in the real world? No, right ? Similarly as traders when we are learning it is important for us to practice as much as we can on real charts , maybe not with real money. Surgeons don’t practice their first cut on real bodies but on dummies. Similarly traders should practice their learnings on demo accounts.

3. Good Mentoring – Do you remember in school you excelled in the subject which was taught by your favourite teacher? And maybe you choose a profession based on some mentor in your life, it can be a professor, a fellow student, a family member, a social figure. When you are becoming a professional there are a lot of confusing decisions that you have to make in the beginning. Like a MBBS student has to decide which specialisation he wants to do or whether he wants to study further etc. So you require a good mentor who can guide you in the right path from the beginning itself. Similarly as a trader you should have a good mentor who can guide you in the right direction, help you to get up when you fall, explain your mistakes, and make you grow into a professional trader.

4. Right Mindset – Lets take an example a student excelled in theory and practice on dummies but he fainted during his first surgery? Do you know why? Because he got too stressed and was not in the right mindset, but with practice and counselling from the right mentors he ended up becoming a great surgeon. Let’s take one more example. Have you heard that surgeons don’t perform surgery on their own family members, why? Because attachments and emotions can mess up your mindset and you may not be able to perform your best. Similarly in trading it is very important to have the right mindset when you are in the live market. This mindset can be built by your own mentor and sometimes you may require help from professional trading psychologists, and performance coaches like me. I take one to one sessions with my clients to help them build the right mindset to become a successful trader. To book your first trial session WhatsApp @ +91 99 99 49 48 44

5. Time Investment – You can’t become a doctor in a year or two, you have to spend a lot of time learning the theory, practicing in the labs, or observing doctors in the real world. Becoming a professional is always time consuming, there is no shortcut to it. So to become a professional trader you have to invest a lot of time in learning about the market, understanding proper setups, formulating your rules, backtesting these rules, gaining confidence while practicing, executing on the real market, being disciplined and consistent for a long time.

So now you tell me do you see the similarities between a doctor and a trader as a profession? Right ? Then stop over expecting from yourself, stop taking shortcuts, stop believing in hoax posts of quick money from trading, stop getting trapped in this circle instead, invest your time in learning, find the right source of learning, practice on demos and do backtesting as much as you can before getting live in the markets, find the right mentor who has gone through this journey of becoming a trader and can assist you to the right path, don’t just work on the setup or strategy of trading but also work on your mindset, understand and balance your emotions while trading. I am repeating it again that Trading is a profession and it requires a lots of effort and time as any other profession, so if you want to be a professional trader and not just a temporary profit maker then treat trading as a profession.

– Ms. Urvana Kapur (Trading Psychologist & Performance Coach)