Surely that can’t be right?

We get into trading to make money, whether it’s for an additional income, long term capital growth, as a full-time endeavour or a bit of everything.

So, why should we not be trading for the money?

What I mean here is that those people who get into trading and purely see it as a means to make money are the very same people who statistically are more likely to quit. But why is this so?

We need to look at what goes on in the market and what traders must deal with to answer this.

Most people who have traded for several years will tell you it’s one of the most challenging things they’ve ever done. Trading is full of knockbacks.

Just when you’ve had a great winning spell and feel you’ve mastered the markets, along comes a losing spell to put you back in your place, questioning if you were simply ‘lucky’ in that prior run of profits.

Then of course there’s the ‘uncertainty’ in trading. There’s simply no guarantee that the next trade you take will be a winner, so you’re constantly having to deal with circumstances that are out of your control.

So, you’re battling against inner demons on a weekly basis:

“Shall I bank this open profit as I don’t want it to reverse against me and become a loser?”

“I’ve just lost the last 3 trades; I’m going to sit here until I make it back!”

“I’ve just made a load of money, if I keep going like this, I’ll be able to retire next year!”

“I can’t do this; in fact how can anyone do this? It’s impossible to make money from the markets!”

As you can see, the range of emotions experienced at any time can be exhausting….

And it’s precisely because of these statements that we need to not trade for the money. We simply MUST enjoy the process of trading. The analysis, the testing, the journaling, the reviewing, the mindset development, the winners, AND the losers.

If we can embrace all aspects of trading, we are much less likely to quit like so many people do around the world every day.

We don’t quit because of course we trade to make money, but we don’t run away every time the market challenges us. In fact, we run towards it and enjoy that part of the trading challenge too.

Only once we can do this, can we truly call ourselves ‘traders’ and funnily enough, it’s around that time that we really make money…

Until next time, Charlie