Forget about motivation and implement this insteadThere is an over-estimated word that people say. I’m talking about MOTIVATION.
“I need motivation to keep to a healthy diet.”
“I need motivation to go to gym six days a week.”
“I need motivation to see my friends.”
If I needed motivation to trade, I would have stopped trading over a decade ago. From today, I want you to remove the word motivation from your life and replace it with…
INTEGRATION
Integration is when an action becomes a habit without any effort and without any force. You make it a part of your daily life where you don’t need the motivation to do something.
To integrate something is to naturally enforce great discipline, passion and determination into your life.
I bet you already integrate certain aspects into your life such as,
Getting dressed
Brushing your teeth
Cooking food
Just like you’ve integrated a few of the above aspects into your life, so too have I done with trading.
For well over a decade, I have the same morning trading routine I’ve incorporated into my life.
I make coffee
Open my trading and chart platform
Look at the main index
Analyse charts using my MATI System
Place my trade orders
Let the market do its thing
That’s it. It’s what I do.
I don’t need the motivation or discipline from friends, family and colleagues when I follow my morning routine.
I’ve just integrated trading into my routine.
It’s time you stop the motivation and start integrating certain aspects into your life with everything that you are passionate about.
Trade well.
Timon (MATI Trader)
Mindset
3 Ways Traders Can Prepare For SuccessComing into trading with only the desire to make money, often results in not making any.
I didn't make a dime for 4 years till my lucky day came.
Before it, like most traders, I gambled my way into the game with little to no knowledge. I started off with free information. (Youtube and Babypips were my buddies.)
After gathering data from them for 2 weeks, I felt I'm ready, then funded my first trading account. Luckily, I doubled the account on my first day but blew it the next. It was awful but I repeated the process for 3 months till I gave up.
However, I got back a month later. Because I was still hooked by the idea of making money wherever I am. Though at the same time feeling stressed, anxious, and depressed to see my hopes and dreams out of reach, I had faith.
That I carried with me throughout the years, until one day, I found out what was holding me back: a short-term mindset.
Which is what I'll show you how to escape from before it's too late.
**Thus Begin By Thinking In Years Than Months**
Ignoring this advice will be costly. It will cost you your time, money, and mental health. You don't want that.
But you get that by being a short-term thinker. Which is a person who focuses on the now, with little regard for the future. Someone who focuses on short-term results at the expense of long-term interests. A trader who focuses on making money instead of focusing on the 3 stages of becoming a trader:
1. Learning to trade.
2. Becoming a trader.
3. Full-time (profitable) trader.
It's almost impossible to reach stage 3. Yet it is possible when you begin the journey like a long-term thinker. Which is a trader who envisions, plans, and works toward the future. While ignoring the monetary side to focus on the skill (that will serve you till you meet bro, Jesus).
Like what all medical students do.
From the get-go, they know it will take them 6-7 years to become professional doctors. Being aware of this allows them to focus on the stages of becoming doctors. (But lucky for them, they make money along the way through student loans.)
So, coming into trading with an idea that it will likely take you 5 years to become a consistently profitable trader, will assure that. Because it will keep you grounded, focused, consistent, and patient with the process. And that will allow you to enjoy it while growing fast.
With that said, let me show you how you to prepare for trading success below:
1. Create a long-term vision.
A clear vision with a plan will save you from falling into traps that will delay your progress. It will allow you to navigate through the dark cave till you reach the light. But that's only possible when you have a torch and a compass.
Powerful questions and a plan of action.
Questions help you to discover the path. A plan helps you walk the path. Thus to find out if trading is the right path, ask yourself:
- Why do I want to become a trader?
I know you are in it for the money (like I used to be), but that mindset will prevent you from getting it. So take your time answering this question. Don't rush because whatever answer you get will determine your success or failure!
Once you're satisfied with your answer, start planning out your journey by...
2. Setting Objectives
In simple terms, an objective is a measurable step you take to achieve a vision.
For a trader who's in the first stage of "learning to trade" while working a 9-5 job, the vision could be to become a full time professional trader. And the objective could be to buy a trading course from a mentor you perceive as legit, then study and practice till you reach the 3rd level.
To discover that objective, the reason behind it, and how to achieve it, you need to ask yourself:
- What do you need to do?
- Why do you need to do it?
- How you’re going to do it?
After figuring out all that, move on to the next step, which is...
3. Keeping your job
Do not quit your job before becoming a profitable trader. It will save you from unnecessary mental and emotional pain that are caused by forcing profitable trades to pay bills.
That’s a bad approach to trading. It always delivers opposite results that will definitely make you stressed, anxious, depressed, and unsuccessful.
You need not worry about money along your journey, so you can focus on the process of becoming an elite trader.
I’ve made that mistake and it cost me too damn much. So, keep your job to save up at least 2 years of monthly expenses that will get covered once you’ve decided to become a full time trader, and save for a 6 to 7-figure prop firm trading account to manage once you’ve resigned from your job.
Follow the above steps and witness the fruits of being a long-term thinker who focuses on the processes instead of results.
5 Simple Ways To Create Your Ideal LifeIt was November 2021 when I kept on joking with my loved ones about being broke for December. They thought that I had lots of money because I recently quit my job in Mc Donalds. They were right, but I didn’t have the amount of money they thought I had. I had around R8,530 that I saved up for 1 year and 3 months working in McD and had left in my trading account, in total. I planned to use the money to buy a webcam and an FTMO trading account, spend R1,000 on anything, and save the rest for emergencies.
You see I had money but had plans to invest and save it. My family, girlfriend, and friends didn't know nor understand what I was doing. What I did to cut their expectations from me was to tell and give them false reasons on why I'm broke. They didn't believe me when I told them at first, so I kept on affirming to them in different ways that made them laugh and pity. I made it a daily habit to express my false reality till it became true.
I came across many events that drained my pockets within the first 2 weeks of December. My car broke down on a highway 2 hours away from home. My bank card got hacked at an ATM when I tried withdrawing money. My FTMO trading account got terminated after I reached my drawdown limit a week after buying it. I became completely broke from the 3rd week till April 2022.
Can you imagine the state I was in?
I was at rock bottom. Nothing was working. I wasn’t making any money. I was dependent on my mother to survive. It was embarrassing. Every day I kept on asking myself: why I'm broke? why this is happening to me? what did I do wrong to deserve this? Surprisingly, two months later, I found my answer in an unexpected way. I bumped into a video on youtube that quoted a movie called The Secret; it caught my interest, I became curious, looked for the movie on Netflix, and watched it 3 times.
I’m grateful for what I did because it opened new mental pathways that raised many questions that led me to dive deeper into trying to fully understand everything about the power of our conscious and subconscious minds and the roles they play in the universe.
The **conscious mind** is your logical mind. It receives information from your five senses. It is where you think and rationalize. Logic rules the day in the conscious mind. However, the conscious mind does not control our actions. Our actions are almost exclusively controlled by the **subconscious mind**. This mind is largely ruled by emotions and instinct. Its job is to help us meet our needs and urges: reproduction, food, thirst, safety, intimacy, and many others. It is a very powerful force. It doesn’t reason or judge; it simply acts, often commanding your actions
Together, these two minds work together to determine your actions. They can bring you success or failure, happiness or anxiety, achievement or frustration. It is all in the way you use them. *You cannot outperform your image of yourself that is stored in the subconscious mind.* This is what often prevents us from succeeding. Have you ever not asked someone on a date for fear of them saying no? Or not applying for a job because you feared failure? This is the subconscious mind at work. If we do not have an image of our success in the unconscious mind, achieving consistent success is practically impossible.
How do you rewire your mind for success? The process is quite simple:
1. Decide today what you want in life.
2. Envision yourself as obtaining that goal.
3. Find techniques that work for you such as meditation and affirmations.
4. Begin moving towards your goals, celebrating your progress along the way.
5. Remember that failures are simply ways to learn, further teaching your mind to pursue success.
Once you begin training your unconscious mind to support your goals and desires, you will be on the way to success. Your brain will start building new connections that empower you to pursue your goals. Your fear and anxiety will diminish. In their place, you’ll find confidence and resolve. Remember that this must be a continuous, active process. Keep it up and you’ll reach your dreams!
Trading Psychology (Part 1)A philosophy I engage in when trading the markets
- I am not self-employed as a trader.
- The market is my boss and my trades are my employees.
- I merely manage those employees.
Traders often have to think fast and make quick decisions, darting in and out of positions on short notice.
To accomplish this, you need a certain presence of mind. You need the discipline to stick with your own trading plans and know when to book profits and losses. Emotions simply can't get in the way.
It’s NOT that winning traders formulate better trading strategies
It’s NOT that winning traders are smarter
It’s NOT that winning traders do better market analysis
One personal characteristic that almost all winning traders share is that of self-confidence .
Winning traders possess a firm, basic belief in their ability to BE winning traders.
SILVER buy longAsking about silver investment it would be the safest investment in the next few years were talking about next 5 years almost to know that silver will perform better then others metals since its been a long time that silver was being a sleeping giante and next years we will see silver at lvls we never saw before . invest your dollars in silver and thank me later
The Shop Model - Trading Mindset This is a look into the way I see markets and how I see my trading using the Wyckoff Method and comparing it to standard business models. More of a mindset video but I feel is very useful when trading and seeing your trading as a business.
Let me know what you think,
Cheers for watching
AUDJPYAUJPY broke up the descending channel . It has formed a short term uptrend. In order to buy I am waiting a break - retest of the resistance with a TP level close to the most recent solid resistance I spotted.
Otherwise, if it breaks the current support zoen and retest it pointing down I will go vice versa.
In general BoJ is more dovish while BoA is more aggressive in financial policies.
This makes the AUD more attractive for faster profit comparing to Yen and this might drive to further push to the upside cause the pair is mainly bullish over the last months.
Everything lays to the Break of structure mindset, just observations of where the price has/has no power to surpass and how can this action be depicted with big/ small body candles, wicks, velocity of price action etc. Some retracements are weak and the reversal is easy to be spotted. Other retracements are strong and many traders, included me, can be confused if the break & retest is not valid but in fact the setup might be proven right in the end (despite tight SL which is considered a wrong placed exit point.). It depends on what is the lot size, risk management, in which way someone wants to press him/herself, how much can afford to loose etc.
News can whipsaw and create momentarily fakeouts and push to SL hits and drawdowns. The same applies with big players' games behind the closed doors during weekends. That's why I avoid to put tight SL because it is quite predictable and it is seen by brokers, banks etc.
The above, make me avoid trading on Mondays and after 16:00 on Fridays.
Hope that I help a bit!
Goodl luck!
FOMO, What is FOMO? Bitcoin exampleFOMO, What is FOMO?
Fear of missing out (FOMO) is the feeling of apprehension that one is either not in the know or missing out on information, events, experiences, or life decisions that could make one's life better. FOMO is also associated with a fear of regret, which may lead to concerns that one might miss an opportunity for social interaction, a novel experience, a memorable event, or a profitable investment. It is characterized by a desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing, and can be described as the fear that deciding not to participate is the wrong choice. FOMO could result from not knowing about a conversation, missing a TV show, not attending a wedding or party, or hearing that others have discovered a new restaurant. FOMO in recent years has been attributed to a number of negative psychological and behavioral symptoms. - WIKIPEDIA source: en.wikipedia.org
FOMO is something every trader must guard against. It is necessary to control emotions and not be taken advantage of by them.
🟩TRADING HACKS: You're doing ENOUGH 🟩 This video is about the importance of thinking in RR and %. The main point is when you think you haven't earned enough is $ amount - and so you want to trade more and more, which leads to poor trade quality - remind yourself that trading is highly scalable, and so it's ok to imagine you have a 20x more capital at the moment. So x20 your profit in the trade and ask yourself how I feel now, is this enough for the day? Remember, if you're consistent, you'll be able to scale the account relatively easy.
📖 STEP 5 to MASTER TRADING: Create a Checklist 📖
🟩 Checklist is the necessary and essential part of your trading plan 🟩
If you already have a trading plan - that’s really great. Now it’s time to take one step further and create a checklist. You will refer to it before each and every trade, and you’ll enter only if 100% of the checklist is present.
You can have different kinds of trading plan, it can have 5 or 50 pages - and it will describe your overall approach. Unfortunately, when it comes to executing your edge in the market, it’s very easy to bend your rules “just a little bit”, and all of a sudden you find yourself taking trade that is only a distant reminder of your actual trading setup.
Most traders will damage their account not because their strategy is bad but because they start to take random set up outside of their trading edge. Blowing the account usually doesn’t take more than several hours of emotional trading.
So that’s why it’s essential to have a short and clear checklist, usually up to 10 sentences usually that describes, point by point, what your trade entry looks like. You can even check every point before entering a trade (I do it). Of course, with time you’ll perfectly remember that checklist, but it’s also important to honestly follow it without checking every time, and the rule-following skill itself is a separate topic.
🟩 You're trading randomly if you don't have a checklist 🟩
Think about it. How many traders are constantly looking for “something else”, one more strategy. Instead of grinding deep into some specific concept, pattern or trading system, they will run to the next one with the first normal losses. They are running on the surfice for years instead of going deep to the core of trading - which, in my opinion, is the perfection of one strategy.
Sometimes they even find what they like and what starts to show some kind of results. But then some time passes, and after any kind of emotional stress (would it be euphoria after a winner or fear and anger after a loser), he can start to deviate from his rules. A beginner can be so emotional that he can enter random trades, one after another, in the course of a few hours, destroying a big part of his account.
There are a lot of other issues behind such inefficient behavior, however, a checklist is one of the first steps to handling it. Because if you don’t truly know what you’re looking for at the market, you’ll take the first trade you’ll find.
🟩 "Right or wrong" mentality is a fundamental flaw 🟩
You’re only right when you’re following your rules, and you’re only wrong when you take random setups. Again: even if you have a loser but you followed your setup - you're right, and even if you have crazy profit but it was a random trade - you're wrong, because this approach is not stable long-term.
Yes, traders do predict the price movements in a way, but only as a side effect of following their rules and executing their system. A trader will not be fixed on his predictions, and because he drew a box or a line, he will not expect the market to obey his colored drawings. A trader’s job is to take a setup based on his experience and testing, and he should let go of the expectations and his trade, managing on the way of course. This is a very deep question, in my opinion, and deserves a separate post later.
That’s why next time when you’ll see someone asking: “Should I buy or sell sir?”, you can surely tell the person is in the very beginning of his journey.
🟩 How to create a checklist? 🟩
Take a moment and describe in the short form how does your entry look like. What are your rules for Structure, Zones of interest, what is your entry confirmation, and what is your risk and management? I like to actually checkmark every point before each of my trades, so I’m sure I’m following my plan. Here’s an example of what my checklist looks like:
🎁Bonus for everyone still reading :) If you’re struggling with any discipline issues, ask yourself a question: “If I would receive a fully funded 100k account, for free, would I start to follow my rules and would I be more disciplined than I am now, and would I start “trading the right way” at last?” Try to be honest with yourself.
It may seem strange, but many novice traders think that something should happen before they will “really stick to their plan”. It could be “just one more good winner”, or “if only I had bigger capital”, or “when I finish this yet one more educational course’’ - and AFTER that I’ll do what I know I should be doing.
So, if your answer to that question is yes, then this is a clear indication you’re still in a very beginner mindset. Try to realize that ANY external change will not change the way you are. You need to change yourself FIRST, the way you behave in the markets and your mindset, and then everything external will follow.
Stop Loss Alone is not Risk Management - What is Your SystemTo be successful, you must develop consistency in your trading.
You can achieve this by creating a system to trade.
One that provides an edge to fit your lifestyle and personality.
Discipline is required to stick to your system so that you can measure results (wins and losses) over a large number of trades.
A simple journal helps you to measure your trades.
This provides edge and success unfolds over time, requiring a strong mindset to create, adhere and measure.
Goals are achievable through steps that are part of the process.
Things to consider when developing your system are: Market Phase, Price Structure, Areas of Value, Areas of Entries as well as Exits, Multi Time Frame Analysis, Trend Lines, Support and Resistance, Dynamic Support and Resistance etc.
Pro Tip: Trade clean and don't clutter your charts. Trade around a couple of levels with a single indicator.
Be PATIENT to let trades come to you once you have made a trading plan.
And when the market enters your zone, be READY to take action and trigger your entry based on rules.
If you're a new trader or a struggling trader, feel free to reach out and ask me a question.
If you liked this idea or if you have your own opinion about it, write in the comments.
The information and publications are not meant to be, and do not constitute, financial, investment, trading, or other types of advice or recommendations.
✍️WEEKLY QUOTE: Can we change our beliefs about the market?✍️..Each time I experienced a conflicting thought and was able to successfully refocus on my objective, with enough conviction to get me into my running shoes and out the door, I added energy to the belief that "I am a runner." And, just as important, I inadvertently drew energy away from all of the beliefs that would argue otherwise.
..Beliefs can be changed, and if it's possible to change one belief, then it's possible to change any belief if you understand that you really aren't changing them, but are only transferring energy from one concept to another. Therefore, two completely contradictory beliefs can exist in your mental system, side by side. But if you've drawn the energy out of one belief and completely energized the other, no contradiction exists from a functional perspective; only the belief that the energy will have the capacity to act as a force on your state of mind, on your perception and interpretation of information, and your behavior.
..Remember that consistency is not the same as the ability to put on a winning trade, or even a string of winning trades for that matter, because putting on a winning trade requires absolutely no skill. All you have to do is guess correctly, which is no different than guessing the outcome of a coin toss, whereas consistency is a state of mind that, once achieved, won't allow you to "be" any other way. You won't have to try to be consistent because it will be a natural function of your identity
In fact, if you have to try, it's an indication that you haven't completely integrated the principles of consistent success as dominant, unconflicted beliefs. For example, predefining your risk is a step in the process of "being consistent." If it takes any special effort to predefine your risk, if you have to consciously remind yourself to do it if you experience any conflicting thoughts (in essence, trying to talk you out of doing it), or if you find yourself in a trade where you haven't predefined your risk, then this principle is not dominant, functioning part of your identity. It isn't "who you are." If it were, it wouldn't even occur to you not to predefine your risk. If and when all of the sources of conflict have been deactivated, there's no longer a potential for you to "be" any other way. What was once a struggle will become virtually effortless. At that point, it may seem to other people that you are so disciplined (because you can do something they find difficult, if not impossible), but the reality is that you aren't being disciplined at all; you are simply functioning from a different set of beliefs that compel you to behave in a way that is consistent with your desires, goals, or objectives
From Trading in the Zone by M. Douglas
✍️WEEKLY QUOTE: How to be rigid and flexible at the same time?✍️
In what way does a trader have to learn how to be rigid and flexible at the same time? The answer is: We have to be rigid in our rules and flexible in our expectations
🟢We need to be rigid in our rules so that we gain a sense of self-trust that can, and will always, protect us in an environment that has few, if any, boundaries. We need to be flexible in our expectations so we can perceive, with the greatest degree of clarity and objectivity, what the market is communicating to us from its perspective.
At this point, it probably goes without saying that the typical trader does just the opposite: He is flexible in his rules and rigid in his expectations. Interestingly enough, the more rigid the expectation, the more he has to either bend, violate, or break his rules in order to accommodate his unwillingness to give up what he wants in favor of what the market is offering.
🟢To eliminate the emotional risk of trading, you have to neutralize your expectations about what the market will or will not do at any given moment or in any given situation. You can do this by being willing to think from the market's perspective.
Remember, the market is always communicating in probabilities. At the collective level, your edge may look perfect in every respect; but at the individual level, every trader who has the potential to act as a force on price movement can negate the positive outcome of that edge. To think in probabilities, you have to create a mental framework or mindset that is consistent with the underlying principles of a probabilistic environment.
💡 A probabilistic mindset consists of five fundamental truths.💡
1. Anything can happen.
2. You don't need to know what is going to happen next in order to make money.
3. There is a random distribution between wins and losses for any given set of variables that define an edge.
4. An edge is nothing more than an indication of a higher probability of one thing happening over another.
5. Every moment in the market is unique.
From Trading in the Zone, by M. Douglas
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Pro vs AmateurIn trading especially in retail trading we have a massive focus on entries and very little focus on the context behind the trade, we focus alot on things such as indicators, or the perfect candle set up, but we have very little look into the context, so the fundamentals or catalysts behind the move in the first place, we tend to overlook this and focus purely on probability which can take its toll on your account balance.
Whereas in a professional environment they do things very differently with a major focus on the context behind the trades, and why price is going to move a certain a way, and the entry itself is actually a lot smaller part of how and why they trade, it is more the icing on the cake.
So the takeaway is to realise that in a professional environment the focus is less on the indicators and moving averages ect, and more on the reasoning, so to align ourselves closer to professional trading we need to make sure there is always context behind our decision making, in the long term this is how to become consistently profitable.
An interesting way to look at this, is to view the forex market like any other market in the world! it is merely a buying and selling exchange, so would you believe that anywhere else in the world for example the housing market, would a high end property developer be waiting for RSI indicator to be below 30 before buying houses? or would they wait for context like rising interest rates or declining interest rates?
Would they be waiting to see if demand or supply increased before making these high end decisions? so why as a trader should our trading be any different? we need to find value and opportunity!
How to get "lucky" in day tradingHey Traders!
In todays morning video we go over how you can become more lucky in trading by following 3 basic tips!
We hope you enjoy the video, later today we will release a longer video explaining how we use the VWAP and Anchored VWAP indicators here on trading view to spot excellent support/resistance levels and trade with momentum or ranges!
Happy trading to everyone!
Shocking Truths about Trading no one talks about EP1.After 5 years of self-educating myself in the art of trading while undergoing brutal consistent losses, these are the truths that set me on the path of surprising consistency after internalizing them.....I hope it will for you guys and give more inspiration to the already consistent ones.
Shocking Truths no one talks about in trading:
1. You may have the best strategy, signal provider or learned everything about trading, but what counts is what happens to that knowledge 5 seconds before pressing the buy/sell button.
2. What is Mathematically optimal is Psychologically impossible.
If you have a strategy that gets wins of 25R but has like 12 losses in a row, DUMP IT.
Mathematically, you will make money at the end, Psychologically you will quit before you take trade 13.
3. You start winning in trading when you believe you can lose (Trading Paradox).
Consistently profitable traders have one thing in common: they place their next trade like it was already a loser.
4. Extremely good analysts are most often bad traders....you can be right about the direction but fail in the critically important aspect of Entry timing and still lose the trade.
5. IT IS THE SIMPLE THINGS THAT WORK!.
Most people will tell you to look for complex strategies that look for "Random walk algorithmic discrepancies that rhyme with Chaos theories....and all that blah..." But I have been on that path and I hate to break it to you that a guy/girl using only support and resistance and simple moving average crossovers with a verified and bactested edge and discipline will most likely be more profitable.
5. THE MORE OBVIOUS A TRADE IS THE GREATER THE CHANCES YOU LOSE IT.
Most people think that if a trade has soooo many confluences it is more likely to work....well that might be true to an extent after which it is a blatant fallacy. From historical data and my own personal LIVE trading results, the probability of a trade working out reduces DRASTICALLY when the number of confluences crosses 5.
I theorize that this happens because market makers will see all the orders placed at that point is soo much(cause everyone will see the opportunity with their different approaches) and take them all out.
6. No one can sell a money printer, cause it has no price.
If someone offers to sell you a robot or STRATEGY that triples your money every month, laugh and pass, if you don't and end up buying that....you deserved to be scammed.
Think about it the person can just take $100 and apply his/her magic to it and print out Elon Musk's networth in lower than 3 years using compounding......and he/she will sell you that for $2000?, you must be kidding me!.
7. Your consistency has nothing to do with your strategy but your mind.
I can bet you my life's earnings, that there is someone out there, using your exact entry and exit rules but is profitable and you are not.
A better strategy brings in more profit, but any random edge with the right mindset and risk management MUST be profitable.
8. Almost everything in life is a pyramid-scheme, & survival of the fittest and trading is not left out.
No matter how much we desire to the contrary, it is IMPERATIVE THAT TRADING HAS MORE LOSERS THAN WINNERS.
The winners in trading have to be relatively fewer cause they win a lot and hence they need soo many losers to give them that money.
There is no bank that hands at money to you when you win, your job as a trader is to outsmart some other fellow and TAKE his/her money and once you come to terms that every dollar lost by you trading, is a dollar gained by someone else in this zero-sum game, you will realize only YOU has got your own back.
9. You can NEVER completely eliminate emotions in trading but you can set rules that allow you trade only when you are at your optimal state, and gives you a day or two vacation when you are down.
10. Reading this article will definitely NOT HELP YOU, it is remembering it the moment before you place your next trade that will.
Pls LIKE and Subscribe, I want to know what you think about this article and which point you agree with the most or disagree with.
Tell me whether it helped you in any way and if we get 50 likes and 20 comments I will consider making the next episode.