In general, the market does not care about you. It existed before you came and will be existing after you die, so do not take things personally.
Trading is a business. Tough business which breaks many concepts you have been taught in the school or life. Here are some thoughts to get you on the right track.
Education
If you are a biochemist or the best in your class in mathematic, it does not mean much. It can help you to do quicker counting or other aspects of trading, but it will not help you to be a better trader. If your background is IT, you will have it easier when setting up the hardware and software, but it does not give you any higher chances to succeed against any other man or woman in the world. Do not expect that your education makes you half the route ahead.
In trading, only the good ones make the money. You cannot count with luck and expect big figures.
Starting a business from the couch
Starting a business is not cheap. Usually it will cost you some investment then you build up the business then you start making some money. In trading, you can start with your mobile phone in the pocket and internet connectivity, which you already have. The industry is known to have very low success rate below 10% succeeding, but for any other business type the numbers are not that much higher. According to the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics in the USA), 20% of new businesses have failed in the first 2 years, 45% in the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. 25% of new businesses make to 15+ years. Do not expect to make money in your first year trading.
As in any other business, there are people who make it extremely fast, so there is a chance you will succeed fast too, but it won’t be without hard work. There are millions of people like you who try to make it, and they have the same or higher enthusiasm, commitment and motivation to make it. Still, 90% of them will fail, and you will have to earn it by your own hard work to be in the 10% group.
Education is not cheap in this industry, so be prepared to invest in yourself. It can be books, trading groups membership or coaching.
Experience
You cannot replace experience with anything. You can read all the books you find, it is the actual time spent on the market with your own mind and demons that will determine your success. Usually the time is the limiting factor, so spend it wisely. I do not recommend you to watch the market for the whole day and expecting that it will miraculously stick to you and a magic lightbulb will light above your head.
How is the money made?
How you evolve will determine how you make money in the market. There are tons of mistakes you can make, and doing the mistakes is the part of trading. Remember how you were told in school that no mistakes are graded with best scores? It does not have to be like that in the market. You do everything right and still you lose money. That is a fact, and you need to accept it.
Many times it will be like you lose few days small, you earn some days small, but on some days you catch a bigger than usual day. Those days will make you the money at the end of the month, as the small red days will be scratched by the small green days. From the previous sentences, you probably already understand that you shall not have big losers. That is where the proper risk controls should protect your capital. More on risk controls in the future posts. Some traders make money by earning small every day, and at the end of the month it adds up to nice figures.
Do not expect to make money by trying to copy someone else’s trades. It does not work in the long term, it does not teach you how to trade, and it has been part of many scams out there.
Going out alone
If you plan to make it on your own, your chances are much lower. I have never met a trader who made it alone with the knowledge earned from books or videos. So be prepared to be social.
Trading buddy
Being part of a trading community might feel great for the start as there are some people helping you out with this and that, but at the end you will need a trading buddy who will make you accountable for your bad behavior and inspire you to do the right things. Usually the spouse is not a good trading buddy as they usually do not understand the reasons and emotions connected to trading unless they are traders too. You can find your trading buddy in the trading communities on the web (usually paid or on private invite access) or pay for a professional one.
Trading coach
A trading coach will greatly shorten your way to become a successful trader as he (or she) will guide you through the forest of mistakes with some light, and they usually know how to handle problems you will encounter. Without a coach it takes much longer because you need to try this and that and at the end and when you get stuck in a hole there is nobody to push you out of it.
Mental coach
Sooner or later you will need one, as everybody comes to a point where the limit is their own mind. There are many books and many videos available telling you how to be your own mental coach, but as with a trading coach, the journey is much longer when doing it on yourself. Human mind is a complex thing and likes to do shortcuts, believes in various non-factual things, so it is only a question of time when you will need help in this area. As usual there are plenty of coaches around, so it’s up to you to pick one, but beware, there are many that just sell you some self-awareness course and give you very few useful information. I can recommend @wesleylorenzo as my mental coach.
Sometimes your trading coach can be your mental coach as well and many times you find very good friends in the trading communities, so that is one of the great wins for you when you decide to go for this type of business.
What is realistic?
Trading is about risking and traders think in “R” which means risk per trade. Whatever your risk per trade is. It can be $10 it can be $1000. Anyway, if you are a beginner, I advise you start with coffee money and no more than $20 per trade and for data collection I recommend staying on static risk so always the same risk amount per every trade or at least set of trades.
Depending on your current experience, your monthly target can look like this:
0R is ok - this should be your target when you are constantly losing money for some time already
10R is good - this should be your target when finding consistency
20R is great - this should be your target when finding improvement
30R is super - this should be your target when finding living from trading
50R is perfect - this should be your target when finding your new job
100R is insane - this should be your target when finding wealth
Do not expect to make thousands from the start. Even if you think that you have a 500k account, and you can risk $5000 per trade the odds are against you until you prove otherwise, so why would you not want to confirm that your trading actually works with some small money, then increase the risk per trade? Like on the above picture, You would not go to walk out to the rope without any safety measures.