Why is Trading So Difficult and What Can You Do About It?

Dear TradeZella,

Why is trading so difficult?

We're often reminded of how truly challenging it is to become a trader throughout every stage of the journey.

Whether you're a beginner or consistently making money, the difficulty of understanding the markets, your edge, and your psychology is ever so real. 😬

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The challenge of trading may get easier to manage over time as experience is gained, but it's important to understand what about trading makes it so tough for us humans to grasp.

In this one, we're discussing

• what makes trading so difficult
• what we can do about it

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#1 Trading is counterintuitive.

Consider some of these trading realities...⬇️

• You're not being paid for your time here. Working for 5 hours does not ensure you're getting paid.
• You can lose money by "showing up to work".
• Put in tons of effort for months at a time and there's still a chance you're not seeing success.

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• In order to win, you have to lose. A lot.
• Successful trades do not involve predicting.
• Sometimes doing nothing is the best protocol.

Trading has several more seemingly backwards realities but you get the gist. ✅

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#2 You have to rewire your brain.

Remember the "backwards trading realities" we listed just a second ago?

Each of those is a reason on why individuals must re-wire their brains to respond better to a trading environment. 🧠

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Throughout childhood, we've learned to follow a certain set of rules or standards. 📝

These could include attitudes, beliefs, thoughts or actions towards specific stimuli.

Seeing that trading is counterintuitive, we need to reverse some of those beliefs and channel them into something productive. 📈

For example, take the idea of "more is better".

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With trading, it's often the opposite.

• Spend too much time in front of the screen trying to make things click? You'll undergo decision fatigue.
• Lose more money than you planned on a trade? Your brain is wired to risk even more money on the next one to make it back.
• Professional traders...? Yeah, they make mistakes and take losses too. It's just how they handle them that makes the difference.

See what we mean?

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#3 Failure = good.

You starting to see the pattern now?

Things that we've been wired to think are going to hold us back, are actually what propels our progress. 🚀

Here's a quote for you to consider:

"Strength is not born from strength. Strength can only be born from weakness. Be glad of your weaknesses now, for they are the beginnings of your strength." - Dr. Claire Weekes

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Failure in trading is a GOOD thing. Each time you fail is an opportunity for you to learn what shouldn't be done next time.

💡Here are some examples:

• Didn't exit at your stop loss and now you're in the hole for more than you bargained? Fail. BUT, now you know to never do that again.
• Chased the third massive green candle in a row to catch a move and now a big pullback is stopping you out? Fail. BUT, now you know to wait for a better entry.
• Got out of a trade too early because you're afraid to hold on? Fail. BUT, now you know, you must re-adjust your plan OR hold to your profit target.

Embrace these failures. Take them seriously.

When it comes to failures...

resilience + adjustment = success

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What can we do about this difficult learning curve?

One of the toughest parts about trading is not necessarily trading itself, but staying determined throughout the learning process.

You see, trading is not like other careers.

When you're training to be an accountant, a doctor, or a firefighter, there's generally a set amount of time in school until you're ready to be successful at that job.📝

You do 4, 6, 8 years of training, and once you're out, you generally know enough to start making money and operate as normal.

With trading, that process is non-existent.

You never know when you'll start making money from this activity. There's no idea when you'll start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

💡 What you need to do is accept that reality.

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Understand that you truly won't know when you'll start to be consistently profitable. And that's okay. We've all been there.

A few words of advice:

Enjoy the process.

One day, you'll be looking back at times when you struggled and appreciate the hard work you put in.

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User Highlight

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Zach breaks down his $12k trade and all the playbook elements that go along with it.

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