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Thanks to paultag for sharing this entry on NN forex thread, pretty much describes how you feel and work through different stages as a trader, if you have the intention to be one.

Hello all,

I ran across this article when I first started trading FOREX. At the time I thought it was a good article but was sure I would learn from the mistakes of others and breeze through all 38 steps.

Well it is now 4 years later and I am now bouncing up and down between 34 and 36.

Rather you believe it or not, these are the steps that all traders follow as they move along the road of mastery.

38-Steps to becoming a Successful Trader

Interesting, good road map to see where you are and whats ahead of you:

1. We accumulate information–buying books, going to seminars and researching.
2. We begin to trade with our ‘new’ knowledge.
3. We consistently ‘donate’ and then realize we may need more knowledge or information.
4. We accumulate more information.
5. We switch the commodities we are currently following.
6. We go back into the market and trade with our ‘updated’ knowledge.
7. We get ‘beat up’ again and begin to lose some of our confidence. Fear starts setting in.
8. We start to listen to ‘outside news’& other traders.
9. We go back into the market and continue to donate.
10. We switch commodities again.
11. We search for more information.
12. We go back into the market and continue to donate.
13. We get ‘overconfident’ & market humbles us.
14. We start to understand that trading success fully is going to take more time and more knowledge then we anticipated.

Most People Will Give up at this Point as they Realize Work is Involved

15. We get serious and start concentrating on learning a ‘real’ methodology.
16. We trade our methodology with some success, but realize that something is missing.
17. We begin to understand the need for having rules to apply our methodology.
18. We take a sabbatical from trading to develop and research our trading rules.
19. We start trading again, this time with rules and find some success, but overall we still hesitate when it comes time to execute.
20. We add, subtract and modify rules as we see a need to be more proficient with our rules.
21. We go back into the market and continue to donate.
22. We start to take responsibility for our trading results, as we understand that our success is in us, not the methodology.
23. We continue to trade and become more proficient with our methodology and our rules.
24. As we trade we still have a tendency to violate our rips and our results are still erratic.
25. We know we are close.
26. We go back and research our rules.
27. We build the confidence in our rules and go back into the market and trade.
28. Our trading results are getting better, but we are still hesitating in executing our rules.
29. We now see the importance of following our rules as we see the results of our trades when we don’t follow them.
30 We begin to see that our lack of success is within us (a lack of discipline in following the rules because of some kind of fear) and we begin to work on knowing ourselves better.
31. We continue to trade and the market teaches us more and more about ourselves.
32. We master our methodology and trading rules.
33. We begin to consistently make money.
34. We get a little overconfident and the market humbles us.
35. We continue to learn our lessons.
36. We stop thinking and allow our rules to trade for us (trading becomes boring, but successful) and our trading account continues to grow as we increase our contract size.
37. We are making more money then we ever dreamed to be possible.
38. We go on with our lives and accomplish many of the goals we had always dreamed of.

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