Align Your Trading Goals

Align Your Trading Goals

by | Aug 24, 2024 | FOREX TRAINING

Hey everyone, thanks for stopping by again. In this blog post, I’ll be sharing 3 ways to align with your trading goals.

Define Your Goal

When you start trading, it’s important to define your trading goals. Knowing what you want to achieve is the first step. The second step is to lay out a plan on how to reach your goal. The third step is to align with it. Aligning with your goals means starting to do the things that will get you closer to achieving them. If following too many Forex pages is confusing, unfollow those that don’t add much value to your trading life and clean up your email subscriptions by unsubscribing from sites that are not in line with your trading approach.

Create a Trading Plan

Creating a trading plan involves establishing a set of rules that you will follow every time you sit down for a trading session. Creating a trading plan is easy, but sticking to it is what challenges most traders because it requires a high level of discipline. The Forex with Ntombi Trading Journal is designed to help you stick to your plan and develop discipline and consistency. You can get a copy instantly HERE.

After creating your plan, eliminate distractions. This may mean not discussing your trading with fellow traders or leaving certain groups to make trading a more personal affair, thereby increasing your focus.

Mind Your Personality and Lifestyle

Choosing a trading method that suits your personality and lifestyle is crucial. If you want to trade while managing a 9-5 job, business, or school, you cannot choose a method that requires hours of chart study, since you won’t have enough time to focus. This will make you feel overwhelmed and frustrated. I’ve published a podcast episode on this topic, which you can listen to HERE.

Thank you for spending time on the blog today. If you found value in this post, kindly share it with your peers, and don’t forget to subscribe to stay updated on future educational posts.

5 Things That Traders Need To Understand

5 Things That Traders Need To Understand

by | Jun 15, 2024 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING

Hello subscribers and readers, if you just stumbled upon this blog, greetings to you too. Feel free to subscribe for future blog post notifications. In this post, I share 5 things that traders need to understand.

You Will Get Scared

Being scared is normal for a beginner trader because trading can initially be scary. The biggest challenge though is when you allow it to turn into fear. Allowing it to turn into fear means you let it affect you long after you’ve experienced it. Fear can also be crippling.

Most traders deal not only with their fears but also the fears of others. They carry other people’s stories as their own. They could read stories on the internet about how others have lost money and been scammed through Forex schemes (there are plenty of those). Acknowledge that you are scared but don’t make other people’s stories yours, create your own story. I have published a mindset booklet ” titled “Shift your Mind Shift your Money” to help you fix this because winning starts in the mind.

Being scared is not a permanent state. Scared money never grows. Being too scared to take a trade will result in you parking your money in a trading account and never utilising your trading skills on a real level. The only way to get over the fear is to place trades whenever opportunities arise.

You Will Panic

If there’s one thing that a beginner trader can’t escape is panicking. We all start trading on the demo account before trading the live/real account. Whatever emotions we work on while trading on the demo will need to be worked on again after starting a live account. This is simply because you can’t assess your emotions while trading fake money, everything you feel is on a demo level. For that reason, it is in your best interest to not trade on the demo account for too long because it’s not a real thing and it doesn’t challenge you on a real level. I have published a podcast episode on this topic, you can listen HERE.

To remedy this, the best thing to do is to detach from the money and focus on getting it right while trading a small volume/lot size. Panicking a lot will make you miss great opportunities or even close your trades prematurely. When you panic, you are also likely to want to place a trade on the demo first before placing it on the live account, which delays your progress. You become a better driver by driving on the real roads not on a sport field where you don’t encounter real traffic and driving among other cars and drivers. Detach from the results and focus on the process of getting your desired results.

You Will Have A Crappy Trade

I know you don’t want to hear this one but you won’t always be 100% correct. There will be times when you won’t get the results you want, make bad decisions, and get into a bad trade. What separates winners from losers is the actions they take when that happens. You should have an exit strategy that doesn’t harm your account or lead to a margin call.

You Will Need Emotional Control

Like most beginner traders, you are likely to battle with that small voice that keeps telling you you will lose money. You have probably lost some money before and you know maybe a few people who have lost money in trading. Detach from other people’s stories as mentioned in the above paragraph and focus on creating yours. To overcome that nagging voice you need to understand that there is risk involved in trading just like there’s risk involved in any investment or business and risk can be managed.

You Will Feel Like Giving Up.

Yes, you will feel like giving up especially if you are desperate to see the results. One thing that can help you is to view your trading account as a business and understand that a business needs you to be patient and for you to nurture it to grow. I have published an episode on my podcast about what to do when you feel like giving up.

Risk can be managed, but you will need to manage yourself as well, take calculated risks, and learn how to manage your trading capital. Keep a Trading Journal to help you track your progress and do not dwell much on what you can achieve daily, rather do a weekly or monthly progress. I have published a trading journal to help you do just that.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. Please help me reach as many traders as possible by sharing it. For all your practical and realistic trading psychology needs, you can follow and indulge in my podcast.

10 Ways To Manage Anxiety In Trading

10 Ways To Manage Anxiety In Trading

by | Dec 6, 2023 | FOREX TRAINING

ANXIETY: A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome. Source: Oxford Dictionary. In this post, I share 10 practical ways to manage anxiety in your trading.

1. Identify Why You Are Anxious.

In your trading, you need to know why you get so anxious. Is it because you’ve lost money before and you are scared it will happen again? Is it because you’ve read so many stories on the internet about how people lost money in trading? If it is because you’ve lost money before, you need to deal with that and find out why it happened and rectify it.

If it is because you are absorbing other people’s sad stories about trading, you need to focus on creating your own story and affirm it. I have published an E-Booklet with affirmations that can help you shift your thinking and align with your trading goals.

2. Prepare Yourself For Your Trading Sessions

Make sure that you set aside your trading time. For me, this is easier because of how I trade. My personal trading method is based on following the 3 W’s, which are:

What do I trade?

When do I trade?

Why do I trade?

If I know that I will have visitors or any meeting that will clash with my trading session, I don’t plan for one. As a trader, you need to have uninterrupted time during your trading.

3. Understand That You Can’t Control the Markets.

You cannot control what happens in the markets, but you can always control yourself. This is the main reason why personal development is crucial in trading.

4. Ditch The Perfectionist Mentality

Wanting to be a perfectionist denies you an opportunity to learn. If you expect yourself to just get it, you’ll be discouraged if you don’t get it right away. Give yourself time and stop being too hard on yourself. Nobody started as amazing; all the experts started as beginners and worked their way up.

5. Believe It Can Be Done

If you don’t believe in what you are doing, your chances of succeeding are slim. I have published an episode on this topic. You can listen HERE.

6. Do Not Focus More On Daily Target

Setting up monthly, weekly and daily targets is good, and it gives you a structure. This is like when you are driving around with a map and have a destination for where you are going. Setting targets is not limiting yourself,lf but it is about creating a roadmap for yourself, and it teaches you to be content and know when to stop. It teaches you discipline.

Do not dwell much on the daily targets because, should it happen that you don’t reach them, you get discouraged. Also, note that not reaching your daily target does not mean you won’t reach your weekly or even monthly target. Some days you’ll hit your target, some days you won’t and some days you’ll exceed.

7. Pressure Of Wanting To Make Money Every Day

It is OK if you don’t make money every day. We do not create our trading opportunities in the markets. Sometimes there are more opportunities, sometimes there are fewer,s and sometimes there are none on a particular day. If you don’t want such pressure, do not share your daily trading activities with your friends who will always ask if you’ve made any money. Do not treat your trading as a community project.

8. Do Not Focus On Making Money Fast

Trying to make money fast may lead to gambling. Rather, focus on making money consistently. Speed kills in the markets.

9. Do Not Put Deadlines On Your Account.

One of the things that will make a trader put a deadline on their account is trading with borrowed money. Trading with borrowed money adds unnecessary pressure.
You are likely to gamble and mess up if you are already thinking about the loan repayments that need to come out of your account. Do not send a letter of lobola negotiations and put a deadline on your trading account because the money needs to come from there. Don’t do it; it causes anxiety.

10. Stop Following FX Lifestyle Gurus

Stop following traders on the internet who are focusing more on showing off their cars and lifestyles. This is likely to make you feel like you are missing out, and it can also cause you to blow your small account because those people will share their screenshots of profits and nothing else.

Thank you for spending some time on the blog today. If you found value in this post, kindly share it with your peers. Don’t forget to subscribe to stay updated on future educational posts.

Looking to elevate your trading routine? Visit the Forex With Ntombi Shop to explore our printable trading journals and digital tools designed to help you build consistency.

5 Reasons Why Traders Quit

5 Reasons Why Traders Quit

by | Oct 22, 2023 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING

Hello readers. It’s been a while since I published a blog post here. I must admit, It’s been a very hectic year. Whenever I do get some time to publish some content, podcasting comes to mind because there, I just talk, and it doesn’t take much time. Anyway, things have settled a bit this side, and I will try my best to update this platform like I used to do. Today I want to address the issues that cause traders to quit trading within a year or even less. Below are the top 5 reasons why this happens. There’s definitely more, but I will only mention 5.

Impatience

Most traders are so impatient with themselves, and they expect to get straight to the part where they are amazing without giving themselves enough time to practice and gain the necessary experience. If you get a new job, you still need to gain experience in how to do the job, no matter how qualified you are.

You are also likely to make more mistakes as compared to an experienced employee. This is the main reason why employers would prefer to hire someone who not only has the necessary qualifications but the experience as well.

It saves the company a lot of money if they hire an experienced employee. As a trader, you also need to think about that and give yourself time to gain the necessary experience. As you gain it, you will also make a few mistakes and eventually master your craft. Be patient with yourself and stop wanting to be a perfectionist. Remember that all the people you read about would not have made it if they were not patient.

Wanting to Make Money Fast

Think about starting a business. When you start a business, you need to understand that you may not live off of it right away. You need to understand that you may even be required to support it financially before it can support you.

A business needs you to take care of it before it can take care of you. You may even go for a whole year without earning a salary from your business. You do not quit just because you are not yet earning a salary from it; you do whatever it takes to learn as much as you can about your business, and eventually, your business takes care of you.

It is the same with trading; you may not make money right away. Also, just do away with the “making money fast” mentality. Now everything that I mentioned will only make sense to you if you can start treating your trading account as a business.

Expecting a Lot from Small Capital

Now, the internet and social media have sold Forex trading as the quickest way to make money with zero effort and a minimal investment; this is not true. Your earning potential is highly linked to your start-up capital. Money gives us options. When you have more money, you also have more financial instruments to choose from.

Let’s say you start trading with $100; even if you can make 100% (which is mostly unsustainable- story for another day), this will mean you now have $200, and I doubt you can make a living with that amount. If you have small capital to start trading with, you can start with what you have and grow your account. I have published an episode on this topic, and it is the most listened-to episode on my podcast. LISTEN HERE.

Viewing Trading as a Game

Most traders think trading is some kind of game that is not related to anything that is happening in the global markets. Changes in the Interest rates/Monetary policy, GDP, CPI and many other economic factors have a direct impact on the economy, and they affect the currencies and stocks that we all trade. If one is looking for a hobby or a game, they must look elsewhere because trading can be a very expensive hobby if treated as one.

Not Failing in Love with the Process

Most of us would really love to see the process of falling in love with us sometimes. Unfortunately, life does not work like that. Trading is the journey of self-discovery. You will have to develop confidence, patience and consistency.

If you don’t fall in love with the whole process, you will definitely give up even when you are just about to make it. One of the best tools that I have been using is keeping a Trading Journal. It helps with keeping consistency, tracking my progress, identifying areas that need attention and sticking to my trading plan.

I hope you have identified your own struggles that made you quit, or maybe you were about to quit. Start working on them and see if you can get back to trading, and this time around, approach it with a renewed mindset.

Thank you for stopping by. If you love what you read and found value here, kindly share with your peers and stay tuned for more posts. Happy trading.

5 Ways To Master Trading Psychology

5 Ways To Master Trading Psychology

by | Mar 12, 2023 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING

What Is Trading Psychology?

Trading psychology refers to a trader’s emotions and mental state. It determines a trader’s success or failure. In simple terms, trading psychology is how you behave in the markets.

If you can fix your behaviour and how you handle yourself in the markets, you can see great improvement. Most traders lose money because of their behaviour and not their strategies. I have published an episode on my podcast titled “The Importance of personal development” because working on yourself is crucial. You have to keep your trading psychology in check at all times, and working on yourself should be an ongoing thing. In this post, I will be tackling 5 ways to help you master your trading psychology. Without further ado, let me get straight to it.

 1. Greed

Most traders struggle with greed; I struggled with greed a lot as well. A trader who is controlled by greed tends to make risky and uncalculated decisions and, as a result, take huge losses.

On a very good trading day, a greedy trader makes a lot of profits but gives it all back to the market and has nothing to show for it at the end of the day. Profits go as far as account history, but they are never kept. If this is you currently, you need to focus on working on this.

2. Fear

Fear is not bad, and it is an emotion that alerts us of danger. Fear is bad if you allow it to control you. As a beginner trader, you will definitely feel fearful. Just like a new driver feels scared to drive on the road alone, a beginner trader feels the same. If you buy a car after obtaining a driver’s license and just park it nicely in your garage because you are scared, you’ll never master driving.

You can only master driving if you drive alone on the road, and even if you can scratch your new car, you continue driving it, and eventually you will stop scratching it as the fear subsides and you get used to driving it.

It is the same with trading; you have to be actively doing it, and that’s how you get rid of fear and gain the necessary experience.

Traders who are fearful are likely to close good trades prematurely and try by all means to avoid risk. You cannot avoid risk, but you can manage it. If you want to completely avoid risk, you should not even think about being a trader. You may like to listen to this podcast episode on how to manage your money.

3. Detach From The Money

Detaching from the money may sound like I am saying do not care for your money. That is not what I am saying; what I mean by detaching is that you should not stress much about making huge profits right away, but rather focus on getting it right even if you break even. When you are too attached to your money, this becomes impossible to do.

I also do not encourage traders to trade with the money that they need for rent, school fees, etc., or even trading with borrowed money.

All these add unnecessary pressure, which may lead to making countless mistakes. As a trader, you want to be as relaxed as possible. If, let’s say, you have R10 000 and it’s your last money, do not fund your account with all of it. Split it in half and use the other half to create an income while you trade with the other half.

You stress less when you have cash flow, and you can then nurture your account and allow it to grow. You attract more money when you don’t stress about it.

4. Keep A Trading Journal

A trader who keeps a trading journal is an organised trader. A trading journal allows you to “take stock” of your trades, plan your trades, stick to your trading plan and also keep track of your progress. It helps you create a roadmap that you can review and see where you need to improve. I have published a digital trading journal; you can get your copy INSTANTLY HERE. 

5. Regret

Regret keeps you unhappy. You always regret missing an opportunity; you regret placing a trade, and you regret closing it. I always tell my mentees that remaining happy is very important.

Be happy when you make a lot of money; be happy when you are not making much; also be happy even when your trade goes against you because, even though you may not control what happens in the markets, you can always control yourself, manage your funds, operate your account like a business and apply basic business principles.

Check out my money management course that will teach you how to manage your trading account like a business and never experience a margin call. Enrol and start learning right away. You can listen to the audio version of this post HERE.

Thank you for spending some time on the blog today. If you found value in this post, kindly share it with your peers. Don’t forget to subscribe to stay updated on future educational posts.

3 Steps To Prepare For Your Trading Year.

3 Steps To Prepare For Your Trading Year.

by | Jan 1, 2023 | FOREX TRAINING

Gearing up For 2023.

Hello subscribers and readers. It’s a new year and I hope you are all in good spirits and have landed safely in 2023. This is the first blog post of many. Please subscribe for future publications and if you wish to read on the go, download my APP. This post is all about preparing for your trading year. I will share only 3 things that you can do to prepare for your 2023 trading year. Without further ado, let’s get straight to it.

Set Your 2023 Trading Goals.

The possibilities of making money in the markets are endless. There’s a lot that you can achieve with trading. There are NO guarantees that you’ll make a certain percentage every month because the markets conditions are not the same. Sometimes there’s more trading opportunities, sometimes there’s less trading opportunities and sometimes there’s none. The word “guarantee” does not exist in a trader’s vocabulary.

Some months you can reach your monthly target, you can make less than your monthly target and some months you can even exceed your monthly target, that’s the nature of the markets. Understanding this is crucial. You may love to read the post on HOW TO SET TARGETS.

Before you can start trading again in 2023, ensure that you have determined your short term and long term goals. Setting goals gives you a strong “WHY”. If you have no idea why you are trading, maybe you shouldn’t even trade. I have published an episode on my podcast on goal setting. You can LISTEN HERE and use those tips to set your own short and long term trading goals.

Create Your Trading Plan.

Failing to plan is planning to fail. Always plan your work and work your plan. There is so much power in planning. If you don’t plan for your trading sessions, you’ll end up spending long hours in the markets unnecessarily so. When you don’t have a trading plan, you are not different from someone who is driving around with a map but no destination of where they are going.

A trading plan should outline your trading rules and it has to be adjustable to accommodate market conditions. It must also outline how much time are you planning to allocate to your trading. Creating a trading plan is easy, but the biggest challenge is following and sticking to it. That requires a lot of discipline. It may not be the easiest thing to do, but with the right mindset, it is doable. You just have to change your mindset.

Keep A Trading Journal.

There is power in journaling. Whether you are journaling your fitness journey or eating habits, journaling helps you keep track of your progress and identify anything causing issues in your journey. I kept a food journal and it assisted me in tracking what I was eating, the foods that contributed to my weight gain and also the foods that made me sluggish and caused “illnesses”. I also keep a self love journal which helps me take better care of myself.

Keeping a trading journal serves the same purpose. It helps you keep track of your trades, and your progress and It helps you identify the currencies/financial instruments that work the best for you. A trading journal helps you keep records of your overall trading activities, you become organized and when you are more organized, you perform better.

When you have a trading journal, you can easily stick to your trading plan, and revisit it to find areas of your trading that need improvements or attention. It makes it easier to work on fixing problems and solving your challenges. If you published a digital trading journal to help you keep track of your progress and create a roadmap for your trading success. You can get a copy HERE. and start recording your trades right away and get organized.

Thank you so much for stopping by and reading this post, I hope this helps. If you find any value in this post, kindly share it with your peers and help me reach as many traders as possible. Feel free to leave a comment in the comments section. Happy trading.

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