How do you newbies not lose your motivation?

I've been studying...and reading, and getting advice from people on FF (who are all lovely ppl, this is by far my favorite forum). and now i think i've hit a plateau or even almost started to lose interest.

i'm still demo-ing, so i thought maybe it's time to open up a live account, since i heard that it's a totally different experience. i'm just scared to though. how'd you guys make the plunge?

Hi forex SF,

I found the following useful for making the transition from demo to live. But I only recommend doing it if you meet the following two conditions:

(1) You have consistent equity growth in your demo account from month to month (an occasional losing month is to be expected).

(2) You have been following your system and money mangement rules exactly the same way you would if the account were live. The habits you establish in your demo account carry over into your live account

If you meet those two conditions then open and fund a live account with a broker who offers micro lots or smaller. Check out FX Solutions who I use, or Oanda who is also popular.

When you place your trades, trade ONLY a SINGLE micro lot. Even if your money management says you can trade many more lots, trade only ONE.

If you can't make money trading a single lot, adding more lots is not going to help.

Once you have 20 trades with a single lot, and showing a profit, then move up to 2 lots for another 20 trades. Keep doing this until you've reached the maximum number of lots as defined by your money mangement.

Dial

thank you dial for the good advice.

i think what i'm lacking is in discipline. it's easy to lose interest when the discipline isn't there. i will definitely follow your orders, cuz my motivation is back!

man as soon as you get in there with real money your interest will be at it's peak! im not a huge fan of demo trading, i think newbies need to just get in there and trade real money (im a "throw you in the pool" kinda teacher ). but heed diallists advice and only trade a micro lot. it doesnt matter how small you trade, as long as it's real money you will be feeling the joy, pain, greed and fear.

Rob Booker is a forex trainer and public speaker who has some great rants on dicipline. He is going to be chatting live on fxstreet.com on Thursday the 12th at 15:00 gmt or 10:00 est. If you can get your hands on his pdf on dicipline READ IT. It will help you in ways you can't immagine. Rob is a regular poster to this forum and is a prefered service too. (this is not an ad. I am not even a student [yet]. I am just a fan) If you can't find his pdf, pm me.

Just to add to this, make sure they offer micro lots on their mini accounts.
Standard account: 1 micro = $0.10/pip
Mini account: 1 micro = $0.01/pip

Increase the number of micros you trade until a stop out would hurt (just a little). If you're having discipline problems and you trade $.01/pip, it may be so minute an amount that you don't bother to worry about it. If you up that 'til it would hurt just a little, you're more apt to pay attention to it and stay disciplined.

Keris

I think the company you keep also helps you..
For example, the people here in ForexFactory are all studying forex, by keeping them, you learn while they learn..
Somehow, their enthusiasm rubs off on you..

Furthermore, it's also Desire and Interest to learn...
According to Mark Douglas, our desires are vacuums (if you don't understand what I'm saying, I suggest you read his "Trading in the Zone")..
While that vacuum is not filled, the interest will continue to be there..
Once it's been filled, I think there will be other vacuums that have opened..

As to not losing interest.. Hmmm... I'm really not sure...
For me, trading in particular is a contious learning process..
I think I still haven't touched the surface yet coz I think there are a lot of things in trading that you could learn.. But of course, you have to learn how to distinguish which ones to keep, and which ones to discard..

But anyway, don't be scared/discouraged... The above may only be applicable to me..

But anyway, i hope it helps..

I agree with merlin. It is great to start tradeing with real money, it keeps you interested. I started with a mini account (1 pip = $1.00) (1 lot = $50) (200:1) and I think I made a mistake. Micro would have been better, and gave me longer to learn the ropes. I am not doing so hot. I did however, Make my first trade in 3 weeks recently and put in 26 pips to my pocket. I find that the schedule you keep is very much attached to the success you see in Forex. With my schedule , following my tradeing plan , I didn't see a valid trade. I was hopeing it was just thin holiday tradeing.

By the way my tradeing plan came from the beginners section here at FF. Mudbuddha has some awesome basic tradeing strategies in there. Anyone with basic questions don't hesitate to PM me , I would love to pass on some of the info I have gathered here to a struggling newbie.


HOWWWNDOG

hey howwwndog,

i'm really curious to read some of mudbuddha's stuff but i can't seem to locate it. do you think you'd be able to point me in the right direction?

try this: http://professionalforex.com/index.php

I am still demoing and have been for almost 2 yrs. I am gonna be making the plunge with real money in about 2 weeks. The main thing that keeps me motivated is knowing the confidence I have when I get into a trade that I will make some money. The interest in this is knowing that when I do succeed, my life could change so greatly that I could enjoy life to the fullest. I want to give my daughter a life that no dad could and to be able to take a week or even 2 off whenever I want or take my laptop with me and do my forexing from any where in the world. There are so many factors to consider when wanting to keep interest in this. Everytime I think about making real money at this just gives me goosebumps and the thought of starting a new life. I think about this stuff when I lay down to go to sleep. I think about it right when I wake up. I even have dreams about candlesticks forming on charts. What a rush it is gonna be when I tell my boss, I will be leaving in 2 weeks because I am making enough at forex.


That is my motivation.

i ask some manage account service to help me grow up my a.c

and this moment , i have enought confident to trade for my myself

I jumped into a micro-lot live account after 3 months of "training" with a particular company and had a 50% drawdown which i took as a great lession. My 1 yr aniv. is comming up this Memorial Day holiday (my first class last year) and I'm actually happy to say i'm demoing and loving it. I figure why not tweak and perfect (if there is such a thing) a system that suits my style/personality (which i am doing) in demo and have several positive-demo-cash-flow months then get back into the micro account.

I'm much more relaxed in that my time frame has been set to a 5 to 7 year goal instead of the original "They told me i'd have a million in 46 months" hype... (due to reality setting in and all the serrious fluff and hype from the company i originaly trained with - that i won't mention because i'd never, ever recommend them to anyone even to an enemy, if i had one!).

I'm not stating that i'll have a million in my trading account even in 7 years...but i firmly believe that i'll have a choice at that time to leave my part time job behind and spend full time with my wonderful wife (i already stepped down from FT to PT as we could afford it and that gave me time to study FX more seriously - 8 hrs or so each trade day).

Micro-Lot accounts are great for building your equity through compunding much faster than mini lots as was expalined in a prior post above. They rule!

The Only reason why I Trade ..

Hope it helps ..

once you get to spend the money that you make from trading...there's really no going back.

It's one thing to see your account grow, but when you actually withdraw from your account, holding that cash, reminiscing bout the days you were struggling.. that is the greatest satisfaction.

withdraw your own profit is hugest satisfaction for trader!

I never lose motivation in trading as it's always a really exciting thing. Trading reveals a person's character and I always want to know what kind of person I am. When my technical analysis works it also motivates me a lot for new ideas to come and fresh analysis to create. Traiding requires continuously learning and as I enjoy learning new information - it also motivates me a lot.

That and also the fact that I love trading. There is no point in trading if you do not enjoy it.

you watch this while you are trading?

you watch this because trading gives you the power to own a lambo?

you watch this when you lose money???

Tom Basso took 7 years to manage a billion dollar hedgefund.
Al Brooks, took 10 year using price action to write 3 books.

So if the above took almost a decade. I think I'm doing just fine after 7 years.