Becoming a successful futures trader doesn’t happen overnight. You don’t read a book and Voila! another successful futures trader dazzles Wall Street. It would be nice, but it’s just not going to happen. Once you decide to become a futures trader there’s a lot of hard work ahead.
Climbing The Learning Ladder To Trading Success
Loss is the futures trader’s bugaboo, that annoying little wisp of fear in the back of your subconscious that keeps you from pulling the trigger and achieving success. To succeed as a futures trader you have to squelch thoughts of previous failures and concentrate on learning the new skills that will lead you to success.
Shortcuts To Trading Success
When you’re climbing the learning ladder to success (see our last post), that last step is a huge leap! You may find yourself at the conscious competence level for a very long time before everything becomes so practiced and so ingrained that you reach unconscious competence and start trading in the zone as a master trader. Even when you’re in the groove and really working it, it takes time and practice, practice, practice before your routine and technique click to autopilot and using your system becomes automatic and effortless.
How Successful Futures Traders Handle Loss
If you are a futures trader, you’ve already learned that losing is part of the game. How you handle loss emotionally will determine whether you succeed or fail as a futures trader. You cannot allow yourself to become emotionally incapacitated by loss. Like the song goes: You have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

