What Makes A Successful Forex Trader? Article

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What Makes A Successful Forex Trader?

The many thousands of foreign exchange traders can be split into two groups - those who are successful and make a lot of money from trading and those who merely scrape by. In this article we examine exactly what it is that sets these two groups apart.

Author: Donald Saunders

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If you were to separate foreign exchange traders into two groups the successful and the less than successful would it be possible to identify those characteristics which separate one group from the other?

It is not really important what we do in life, which includes foreign exchange trading, however, no matter what we do, one thing that will have a more significant affect on our success than anything else will be goal setting.

It is a simple fact that the human mind works best when it has a clear roadmap to follow and, when setting yourself a goal, you start building your roadmap by clearly defining the end point of your journey. However setting a destination is not sufficient and you will also need to define the route to follow to reach your destination. Let us consider an example.

Imagine that you make up your mind to build a fortune as a foreign exchange trader, and who doesn't want to after all! This in itself is not however very helpful as any goal that you set yourself needs to be measurable, otherwise you will have no way to know whether you have reached it. So, at this stage, you need to define just what you mean by a 'fortune'.

Let us assume therefore that you decide to set yourself a goal of making $1,000,000 in the next year. You now have a clearly defined destination. The next problem however is that, as you are almost certainly new to the world of foreign exchange trading, are still trying to learn the ropes and may have limited capital to invest at this point, making $1,000,000 in the next year is probably not that realistic a goal.

As well as being measurable, goals also have to be realistic. It does not matter what goal you set for yourself in foreign exchange trading, but it has to be within your capabilities. There is little point in deciding that you are going to win Wimbledon if you have never even swung a tennis racket.

So, rather than aiming for $1,000,000 let us set a far more realistic target of say $120,000. Having done this, we next need to split this figure up into marker posts which we can put onto our roadmap and this can be done by viewing our target on a monthly rather than an annual basis. This gives us twelve $10,000 markers. Now, if we keep going along these lines we can next break our goal down further into weekly markers of $2,500.

At this stage we have something that we are able to view against our current and recent experience and it is a reasonably easy matter to determine whether or not this figure is attainable. Is it possible, in the light of your recent experience, to make $2,500 trading Forex in the coming week?

Your goals have to be measurable and realistic, but they must also be attainable. It is all very well to set yourself a realistic goal, but you also need to have the right tools, in the right place at the right time to reach that goal. If you are presently making $750 a week then you probably won't convert this into $2,500 overnight so, in this case, your goal is not attainable and you will need to go back to square one and start over again.

But, if $2,500 is attainable, then there is one further step that needs to be taken before you are ready to set off on your journey. This last step is to paint a picture in your mind's eye of your destination.

Although you have set yourself a target of making $120,000 in the next year, the money by itself is not really what you are aiming for, but it is what you can spend that money on that is important. So, having made your $120,000 what do you intend to do with it? If you want to buy yourself a new sportscar then paint yourself a picture of driving off into the sunset with the roof down and now you will truly have a goal.

If you wish to be successful in foreign exchange trading then you need to set yourself a goal that is measurable, realistic and attainable and than paint a picture of that goal in your mind's eye. Do this and you will be surprised at how easy a matter it is to reach your destination.

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LearningForexTradingOnline.com is the ideal place to learn Forex trading online and provides information on a wide range of topics including the value for the novice trader of Forex mini trading.

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