6 Things We Wish We Knew When We Were Starting Out

We’ve learned a lot in our now, 3 decades combined, as traders. Most of which we had to learn on our own. This means some of that knowledge has been hard-earned and I am sure you all know what that means. We could cringe over some of the mistakes we have made and thousands we have lost. Fortunately for you, things like our Magnetic Whale Programme take the pain out of the learning curve and can help you rise to the top of the trading pile when it comes to trading skills.

So if we could go back in time and start over again what do we think you would need to know?

1/ You are totally capable of doing this.
When you first start, it’s exciting but also scary. Honestly, it’s the same in anything – sport – business. Self-doubt plays a massive part in your early success or failure and it’s something we don’t always recognise but we can easily see it in so many students as it becomes apparent with the extraordinary amount of questions we get. Often analysis by paralysis rather than actually doing to get better. If you want to learn tennis no amount of reading about it will beat hitting 10,000 balls. So you’ve got to get out there and do it. So a word from us, having trained many different people from all walks of life. YOU CAN DO THIS, just knuckle down and commit to the process and you will become a trader. Keep applying yourself to your index, day in and day out. Keep applying yourself to your set-up, day in and day out and then one day you will wake up and realise you got this and it’s actually much easier than you thought.

So it’s going to be hard work. But in the end, it will be worth it because, in the long run, you will be learning a lifelong skill that can keep you for the rest of your life.

2/ It will not take forever.
Tony Robbins says that you overestimate what you can do in a year but underestimate what you can do in 10 years. We won’t pretend that you can learn to become a trader in 2 weeks but over the course of a year or two, you can literally transform your trading and your life. As long as you arm yourself with the correct education and a bit of patience big numbers can be yours in a shorter time than you think.

3/ Wake up each day with a focus on your trading. (Tweet this) 

We believe that you need to get really clear on where you are going to make sure you eventually get there. The more specific you can get on what you are actually there to do and what you are trying to achieve when you are trading the better results you will get. Although goals get a bad rap the mechanism behind them is strongly tied to human psychology. If you normally spend £150 on the weekly shop and you set out to spend £80 chances are you will hit it even if you don’t you will get much better results say £90 than if you didn’t set that target or goal. Having a target each day whether it be learning or a set amount of target profit will get you closer than having none at all. Keeping an eye on the bigger picture can also help. Some small money goal will not be helpful during the really hard times. But considering the impact becoming a successful trader will have on your family can help you push through.

4/ Get a mentor.
We didn’t have mentors, but in retrospect, we wish we had. In fact, when we look back we can certainly pinpoint some influential people and some influential meetings with other traders that without which we would still be working our way up. It goes without saying that the best of the best have coaches. Much has been said about Andy Murray and his coaches in tennis and he is the world number 1! If it’s good enough for Andy . . . . The thing is that a mentor can often see things that you can’t because you are too close to it. A slight adjustment in your swing (read entry) and it could be the difference between a winning point and losing one (a profitable trade and a losing trade). The other main benefit of a mentor is that they can get you to where you want to go much faster. With momentum, things really do become easier. With a mentor, you can often avoid losing a lot of money and ultimately it helps, make you money faster.

5/ You are going to want to give up!
There we said it. There are going to be days, maybe a string of bad days, that is going to want to make you give up. If you haven’t blown your bank already and are at the start, just know that you will probably one day, if you are still early in your trading career. These experiences do make us better people though and ultimately better traders. Actually, science has looked at this and it’s actually a very common thing in learning which some have called the dip. So get ready for it now. You will probably want to quit. Don’t. You see, knowing that you know you will want to quit means you can keep going and not actually quit.

6/ You will get your just deserts if you stick with the programme.

Sometimes beautiful things take time. Time can reward you. Spending it doing something meaningful like learning a skill means that your skill can pay off years and years later. We have many successful traders who are now retired and make more money now in their 80s than they ever have in their life. But they put the time in now to learn and benefit later. Practice and persistence can make a novice into an expert. Mistakes and experience make you a stronger and better trader.

It follows that performance will improve over time you just need to have patience and stick it out with your learning. It can be hard at times, frankly losing money is hard and you will lose sometimes. But experience teaches you to take that in your stride and then you can really reap the rewards when it becomes time to sow.

Hopefully, these tips will give you more confidence to STICK not TWIST!