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Nial Fuller

NIAL FULLER Nial Fuller
Professional Trader, Author & Coach

Don’t Focus on the Money, Focus on the Trade

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By in Forex Trading Tutorials October 29th, 2010 | 30 Comments

focus on the trade imageMany aspiring traders fail to become consistently profitable because they put too much time into trying to get rich from forex trading and not enough time into the actual process of trading. The paradox of this behavior lies in the fact that the more you concentrate on how much money you want to make in the forex market, the less money you are likely to make. Becoming a consistently profitable forex trader is the result of discipline, passion, and a willingness to recognize and conquer your own personal mental faults. As you begin to focus less of your mental energy on how badly you want to make money from forex trading and more of it on the actual process of mastering your trading strategy and managing your risk, you will find that making money in the forex market becomes much easier.

• How to focus on the trade…

It is quite difficult to focus your attention on only taking the best trade setups and following your trading plan if you are an emotional train wreck because you risk too much money on every trade or are entering numerous trades each day. Most traders get so wrapped up in calculating how much money they are “going to make” on any one trade, that they forget to calculate the risk of the trade and decide whether or not they are truly comfortable with it. Effective risk management is step 1 in having the ability to focus more of your time and energy on the actual process of selecting profitable trades.

Step 2 of focusing on the trade revolves around not entering too many trades in any given period of time. In other words, don’t over-trade, if you have been around the forex market for a while you probably understand the dangers of over-trading by now. However, one side effect of over-trading that you may have overlooked is that it forces you to focus less of your time and mental energy on becoming a great trader because you inherently become overly concerned with the money aspect of trading when you over trade. Over trading is really just another form of over leveraging your account or risking too much, so it is impossible to focus the proper amount of mental energy on mastering your trading strategy when you are freaking out over the amount of money you are losing because you trade too often. The more you over-trade and over-leverage your account (focusing on the money) the worse you will become at trading because you are not focusing your energy in the right places.

• Why Focusing on the Money will cause you to lose…

When you focus your mental energy and time on how much money you can make from the forex market you also put yourself on the path to emotional trading mistakes. The more you think about and focus on “getting rich” in forex, the more likely you are to induce the trading mistakes we discussed above; over-trading and risking too much. When you begin to shift your focus from money to the actual process of mastering your trading strategy and becoming a great market technician, you will naturally begin to money with greater ease. However, the whole point here is that you cannot focus enough of your mental powers on mastering your strategy and becoming a better trader if you do not stop over-trading and over-leveraging. Getting caught up in these emotional trading mistakes takes up most of your mental and emotional energy, losing large amounts of money and then trying to make it back can literally be mentally and physically exhausting.

Once you begin to “forget” about the money aspect of trading, by managing your risk and not over-trading, you will tend to naturally apply this extra mental focus to picking and choosing only the best trade setups, this will work to make you a more profitable and accurate trader, and much quicker than would otherwise be possible. Many traders erroneously believe that by trying to “control” market by trading short time frames and big position sizes they will make a ton of money really fast and then somehow parlay these negative habits into real wealth. What actually happens when you focus on the money this much is that you may get lucky and hit a couple winners and make some fast cash, but it ultimately will destroy your trading account and cause you to lose many times the amount you win, thus prolonging your ultimate trading success. So, the quickest path to making consistent money in forex is by elimination of emotions through risk management and proper trade selection, not by trying to control something that cannot be controlled.

• View forex trading as a challenge to conquer yourself and the money will follow…

Professional forex traders know that trading success is ultimately a function of learning to consciously master and control your own emotions. They also know that is one thing to understand this concept and another thing entirely to make it a reality. Most trader’s that have been involved in the markets for at least a couple of months have no doubt read at least an article or two on the importance of psychology and emotional control in becoming a consistently profitable trader. However, an almost equal number of traders conveniently “forget” about the importance of emotional control or simply don’t believe they have a problem with managing their own emotions. The truth is, if you are not consistently making money in the markets than you are not effectively managing your own emotions or “conquering yourself”. Once you truly believe you need to conquer your own emotions, and you implement a forex trading plan to help you do this, you will start to see your trading account build on a consistent basis, instead of the volatile profits and losses you are probably experiencing now.

If you can treat your forex trading as a measure of your own personal discipline and progression as a person who thinks logically about business matters and not emotionally, you will begin to see the money role in. As we discussed above, in order to forget about the money you have to not become emotionally attached to it and the way to do this is by not over-leveraging and not over-trading.

• Learn an effective method like price action and master it…

Finally, an obvious part of becoming a successful trader is using an effective trading strategy. After all, you don’t want to start implementing all the points above with a trading strategy that is ineffective or overly complicated. If you learn to trade with a simple trading method like price action analysis, you can learn to master this method in a relatively short amount of time, assuming you are following the points discussed above. Once you achieve this point of mastering your trading strategy, you will reach a level of confidence and clarity in your forex trading that you have not experienced before, this is what is known as “trading in the zone”, and is what Mark Douglas talks about in his book by this title. Remember, you cannot reach this “zone” of trading mastery if you do not first learn to master yourself.

If you enjoyed today’s article and are interested in learning more about my price action trading strategies and similar concepts to the those discussed in this article, you should definitely check out my forex trading course information page to learn more about what is offered inside my member’s community, I am also excited to have recently launched a completely revamped member’s back-end which contains the award winning V bulletin forum software, I am certain you will be impressed with the volume of content and services offered in my member’s area. Visit the course page here: forex trading course – Good trading as always – Nial Fuller

Here are some other parts of my site you might like to check out

What is Price Action? –  Forex Price Action Video TutorialsForex Strategies Articles – Trader Development Articles

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Nial Fuller

About Nial Fuller

is a Professional Trader, Investor & Author who is considered ‘The Authority’ on Price Action Trading. His blog is read by over 200,000+ followers and he has taught 25,000+ students since 2008. In 2016, Nial won the Million Dollar Trader Competition. Checkout Nial's Professional Trading Course here.
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  1. Moses

    Words of wisdom, the money never stays when you focus on money, but when you focus on winning trades a new world emerges

    Reply
  2. Tomson

    Putting those things together as you do here makes it so obvious, takes so long time to completely understand and implement it.

    Many thanks from Sweden.

    Reply
  3. Andrew T

    There is nothing more true than what you have outlined in this article Nial.Lose your Focus & you will lose your money.I proved this by doing just that myself.

    Reply
  4. sudhansu sekhar mohanty

    dear nial your article is very practical and heart touching.it is very inspiring to rectify fault. i must take your price action ourse very soon. thanks sudhansu

    Reply
  5. krastev

    Thank you Nial,
    great article n very helpful.

    Reply
  6. henry supriyanto

    thank you Nial…make me better on my daily trading…

    Reply
  7. eric

    Hi Nial
    Great article. I’m sure it will make me aware of what to remember while trading. It’s really hit me “View forex trading as a challenge to conquer yourself and the money will follow…”

    thanks a lot !!!

    Reply
  8. andrew

    thank”S for the good advice. cheers andrew

    Reply
  9. Ramli

    Thanks Nial. Great and Awesome.
    I already followed your trade strategy priceaction and set and forget, its work very well.
    My emotional being take care and others follow.
    thanks

    Cheers

    Reply
  10. xback

    Thanks Nial..i totally agree..

    Reply
  11. Mark O

    I’m going well in my demo account since taking up Nials Course – Discipline is the key – One thing that I am struggling with is deciding which market to concentrate on? Which are better suited to newbies?

    Reply
    • nial

      forex is the market we trade

      Reply
  12. Jeff

    Thanks, this is exactly what I need to start doing to get back on track. Thanks Nial !

    Reply
  13. romeo

    very inspiring…well said…thank you, Nial…

    Reply
  14. rikus

    Thanks Nial. I have never met articles clearly explained.

    Reply
  15. gabriel

    Thanks Nial,

    You’re right !!! The hardest thing is not to conquer the market but to conquer yourself and your emotions! Lots of growing one has to do in this area…..

    Cheers !

    Reply
  16. ironn

    Great article! You are so helpful! Keep the lessons coming

    Reply
  17. Nino Beige

    Thanks again for the great blog Nial!

    Reply
  18. Lisa

    Forum / LTTTM member here …
    I totally agree, Nial Ü

    Reply
  19. oladipo john

    Nial thanks for everything,you dont know what you doing for us man.this is happening to me to even though i have been reading your article for long.i just decided on last wednesday nite i need to follow the principles if i wana be a proitable trader.i only trade the pin bar with my candlesticks patterns,moving average(10&20),support with resistance level,fibonacci retracement to check the 50% retracement level.you cant believe it,i set it and leave it,watch twice to see if any level is holding strong against the movement of the trade.to crown it all,i have been meeting my risk to reward ratio and i am getting more confidence now.i owe you so much man,thanks.i still need your to do your course because i want to be a good trader like you,even if i can be better than you,i wont mind,lol.sometime i wonder if you the one that set the trading platform,you genius man.you dont know how much faith i have in you man,thanks

    Reply
  20. Tauqeer Khan

    Well said article. I would like to know if you have any price action. Sragety for scalping.

    Reply
  21. T Allen

    Great article Nial – thanks

    Reply
  22. Samuel Bandoh

    thanks sir, for that insightful piece of information.

    Reply
  23. Zacharias

    Nice article.

    I wonder, how many trades per day, on average, before you reach the over-trading level?

    Reply
    • nial

      For me its 3 or more .

      Reply
  24. Piotr Janiga

    Great article Nial! I’m sure it will make traders aware of what to remember while trading…thanks !!!

    Reply
  25. akpos

    VERY INSIGHTFUL PIECE….WELL DONE SIR

    Reply
  26. tomek

    Hi Nial,

    I got problem with understanding one thing, You said in previous lesson that we should not chery picking trades and taking every signal that system gives us, but here You are talking about overtrading and waiting for and choosing best setups…. did i missed somthing?

    Thanks for good materials.

    Reply
    • nial

      I do not endorse systems , My point is that you shoudl not over trade, and you should filter trades using checklist,plan, confluence

      Reply
  27. Butch

    I haven’t even finished reading this and I’m telling you this is my crossroads right now. I will read this article on a daily basis… it’s that important. The very first paragraph is accurate of my struggle as a consistent forex trader. Since focusing more on working my system than how much money I’ll make, I’ve been much much more consistent. Thank you for this . Now back to the article.

    Reply