Bad Days. Or Are They?

As most of you know, I’ve recently started trading in the Forex market. Like any new endeavor, there are ups and there are downs. Last night I knew a big move was setting up and had started so i stayed up late to trade it. Things were going pretty well until there was an unexpected reversal of the market. I held thinking it was just retracemrnt instead of taking my profit and going to bed. I continued to hold until my profits were now losses and my account was draining. I froze in hope thinking things will come back down. They didn’t. I fell asleep with losses when i easily shouldnhave had some nice profits. 

This is a bad day for a trader. Any day you lose money is a bad day. On top of it i had a friend supposed to meet me at my house at 9:00 am. My phone died and i missed my meeting and my alarm. It has not been the best start to the day. 😂

I’ve found over the years, that there is always a valuable lesson to be learned in every mistake. Sometimes so valuable you could only learn them from a mistake so I tend to try to dig in these situations and see what i can find. In no particular order, here are the things I learned today: 

-Don’t trade when you’re tired. This one is pretty dumb. People say it all the time. But I had to learn it for myself. 

-Don’t be greedy. Take your profit when it’s there. There’s always another trade. 

-Don’t be afraid to cut your losses. When you clearly see the market has reversed, close the trade and rise it in th different direction. 

-Learning is a process. I’m reminded back to when I started at the job I’m currently at. I started out taking phone calls helping customers. Some days i wanted to quit my calls were so bad. I remember days leaving here hating my job, hating what i was doing not feeling successful. But i stick with it. And i got promoted to a trainer. And I’m currently interviewing to move to our Instructional Design team. I’ll be able to learn a new skill set to help me move out of the 9-5 I so desperately loathe. But all of this didn’t happen overnight. It took hours and days of consistent working at it. If i stay consistent and engaged, I will learn and reach my goals. 

-I am growing more than i give myself credit for. In the last example, I kept going because I HAD to in order to pay my bills. Now I’m CHOOSING to go forward to not only pay my bills but to unlock the life I know I’m built for. 

So hang in there. Bad days are part of the journey. Sometimes the bad days are the most meaningful and impactful days you have in the process. Next time you have a bad day, don’t run away from it. Lean in and learn from it so you never have to tase that type of bad day again.