Forex Trading Strategy Switching Leads to Failure [Always]

Procrastination? Ohhh, I know this feeling so well it even hurts to write these words. Procrastination is one of the biggest problems in the world when we speak about achieving goals and checking items from our to-do lists in any area of our lives. No difference in Forex. There are so many things to learn, yet not all of them are effective and useful. Some might even hurt your knowledge.

You can learn a new trading strategy every day, but this might have a negative impact to your currency trading business. If you jump from one trading strategy to another it will never give you any good and you will never make any money from Forex market. Jumping from strategy to strategy is a form of procrastination. It’s like you never face the reality and do not want to stick to one thing for a longer period of time.

And what about Forex scams? The trading method you are learning might be just something that does not work and never been working at all. This might lead you in the wrong direction without you even knowing about this until you realize that you have wasted lots of time. Sure there are things that work, but which ones? What is worth spending time on and which things should be dropped and forgotten completely?

I wrote so much about Forex scams before and I will release a new eBook quite soon on this topic. Hopefully this will help people to learn how they can identify scams in the Forex market.

Even if you find someone who seems to know the right path and teach you, it might not be the thing that will work for you. Maybe your mentor’s risk appetite will be bigger and you won’t be able to handle his trading method. Or maybe he is too much on that safe side of trading and you won’t get the right amount of excitement and action you expect from Forex.

One of the biggest challenges when you start studying Forex trading online or offline is to block time and really implement that new knowledge in your currency trading. Many traders get stuck in the “circle of learning” when they keep visiting seminars, buy new trading strategies and study new indicators or applications to use. The problem is that they never actually implement all that knowledge and new tools into their currency trading activities. They never write a detailed or even a simple plan what to do and what not to do. They never write their trading rules down and just try something new everyday.

For some time it might be okay, because normally we need time to digest that new information we have learned. But make sure you are not stuck in this “circle of learning” for too long.

I have followed and still following many self-made millionaires who teach about how to achieve your biggest goals that may sound cray and look like impossible thing to achieve. They are not into Forex trading or even financial markets, they are more into business coaching or personal-development, so I am really glad to prove their stuff works in Forex business as well. My book is a real tangible proof of that. It took me about 8 months to publish my book after I attended one seminar in California hosted by Brendon Burchard. And I am sure it would took me only 3 months or so if I was working only on my book alone. I had several projects running during those 8 months and could not focus on my book alone.

I could still be writing that book and do so for the next 20 years, but because I have blocked time for this project and moved one step at a time each or every other day, I have been able to publish it quite fast.

I had this “Write a book” goal on my to-do list for about 2 years and it felt so good when the time came to check it as “done”.

Enough about me and I am not bragging here or something, just want to let you know that procrastination is a habit and everyone can remove it from their lives.

And it’s about any area of our lives. For example it could be sports. You might be searching for that perfect time to start going to the gym, but two years later you realize that this time never came and you still procrastinating it.

So how do you fight procrastination

Well, believe it or not, but a simple Google search might give you 1000’s of ways to fight procrastination. But if you are a perfectionist be careful to NOT look for an answer on Google. You might end up listing all those 1000 solutions in a document and never take action on them because that list is never complete. Later you will find yourself that you procrastinated on solving procrastination and that will be even more frustrating.

Instead of looking for an answer on 1000’s of websites trust my advice and just read this article about procrastination by Chalene Johnson. Even if there might be hundreds of other blog posts on this topic, simply just begin with this one and then take action to start fixing this problem. Step by step, day by day and in a few weeks your should see better results. You will get best results if you print out that information on the sheet of paper and read it at least once every day. I would guess best time to do this for everyone would be during morning coffee time.

I am a fan of Chalene and I am thankful to her because she helped me to fight procrastination.

When you remove this habit of procrastination from your life I am sure it will be easier to stay focused in Forex trading using just one trading strategy.

And one more thing, this post can really help you if you are a perfectionist. Perfectionism was my problem too and in many cases it comes hand in hand with the procrastination.

How do I fight procrastination

I tried many things, most of them I learn from Chalene and other life coaches. I am no perfect, no one is, but I get very excited when I look back and see many things I have achieved. There’s still a long road to go and I am enjoying that journey. So here are the 4 top things that helped me to fight procrastination in my life and I hope they will help you as well.

#1 Different location for different activities

Do you read books? If yes, I bet you have a perfect place for that. Maybe a bench in a park or a comfortable chair in your living room? Did you ever tried to read a book while driving a car? Impossible right? So as driving in a living room. Yeah, sounds silly. So how about your work office? Did you tried to read books there?

Whether you are deepening your knowledge with just one Forex trading strategy or you are learning couple new ones, you will need your favorite place to do this. For me my office works best to learn more about currency trading, try new strategies. But it never works to read a book or even a blog post for more than 10 minutes in my work office. I only get focused to read a book when I am at home and my family is sleeping. I also never get any serious job done for my business while I am at home, unless nobody is home (but this happens rarely when you have little kids). So if I were trying to read books in my office and work at home I am sure I would never accomplished my goals.

Just two years ago I did not knew how to write. I did not had any ideas what to write about and did not even knew how and where to start. Now I have so many ideas that it seems I never get that much time to write about all of them, but I am doing my best. Still, I cannot write a single blog post at home or in my office. So what do I do? I chose one or two days in a week and instead of going to my office I go to a cafe or even leave the town and go to a mall in a bigger city. There is no mood for work when you sit in a cafe and I have nothing else to do just write. I love a cup of green tea I usually I need just a couple of minutes with my mind to get new ideas for writing.

Right now I am writing this on a bus where I will spend about 4 hours riding across the country to get our new family car. I cannot even imagine myself programming MQL4 and creating apps right now, but I feel like that’s a perfect time for me to write.

So what are your favorite locations? Maybe analyzing Forex charts and studying more about financial markets would be your favorite activity while you are sitting in a cafe or a park? For some this might even sound crazy and they would do this in a work office, but others might find themselves really comfortable reading indicators on EURUSD chart while drinking their cappuccino. Try it yourself.

#2 Time is everything

Most people know that listening to audio programs is a wonderful thing to do while you are driving your car. There might be exceptions for sure, but for most people this would work just great. This is a great example how you can find a time to listen to some audio program for hours, especially if you have long drives to your work.

You definitely need lots of time when analyzing Forex charts or studying new trading strategies, so be sure to block enough time for that and what’s more important block the right time. Maybe early morning while your family are still sleeping? Or maybe late evening works better for you?

Every activity has it’s own best time and for every person this will be different. So if you find it difficult to learn Forex trading you should try to do this at different time of the day. If you do it at the time when you cannot concentrate soon you will find yourself on Facebook.

#3 Choose one and stick to it

One of the best quotes of all time by that describes this well is this one by Josh Billings.

“Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.”
– Josh Billings

When we speak about multiple trading strategies I would say it like this.

“Stick to one Forex trading strategy until you prove it wrong or keep profiting with it.”
– Rimantas Petrauskas

Yes there are 1000’s of strategies. Some where created because they make sense even to institutional traders, others were created just for the sake of creating something and sharing on Forex forum.

Have you ever analyzed the last 10 trades over the course of the last month using some new trading strategy you have just found? If at least 8 of 10 trades were profitable you were smiling as you have found something that works. But when you put that strategy into practice you see it does not work that well. Then you move to the next one, and then the next one, and the next one … and the next one again and again and again.

I bet all or at least most of us have done this. So you quit after 1 profitable (hypothetically) and 1 losing (real time trading) month? What about the next 10 months? Maybe say 8 of them will be winners and 2 will be losers. So over the course of the year your strategy would be a winner for 9 months and loser for 3 months. With a proper risk management this might be a really profitable trading method for you. And with a 12-month profitable track record you get a really great chance to start your own trading signal service and help other traders who are struggling to make money in Forex.

What I am trying to say that it’s nothing wrong to try 1000 trading strategies, but make sure you do it right and for a long enough time to prove it working or not. 6 months is usually enough to see if the trading strategy is working, but 12 months is even better. Obviously to test 1000 strategies and spend 12 months for each of them will take you 1000 years. So if you are really serious in doing this and spend 30 years on it instead of 1000 years, you will have to test 33 strategies each year.

Yeah, this is something crazy, but if you want to test 33 strategies each year you will have to create 33 trading robots each year and put them on a test on 33 MT4 accounts. Doing this for 2-5 years would make anyone an expert in creating trading robots, analyzing charts and financial markets. So even if you won’t find anything that works in 5 years you would still get the benefit of becoming an expert in Forex.

#4 Try the things that work for others

What’s more realistic is to try only seriously looking trading strategies that others claim to have success with them. Usually those people will be serious Forex traders and trading mentors like Jarratt Davis. They could teach you really useful things in Forex and this way you might stumble upon only those trading strategies that have bigger potential. So why test 33 strategies a year from some free website full or ads with scammy Forex robots, when you can test 1 or 2 strategies provided you by serious Forex traders.

How this helps you fight procrastination? Simple. When you are trying hard to stick to only one thing and you know that it has more potential then the rest, you will have more confidence that you are spending your time well and that it is worth doing this. If you were programming every trading strategy out there just for the sake to test it you would not have that much confidence than working on something you learned from a serious Forex mentor.

When I started my journey of personal development I started to learn from someone who is the most popular at that time. All book stores were full of Robin Sharma books and I started with them. It was worth every minute of my time reading his books, especially “The Leader Who Had No Title”.
When I started to learn more about running a successful business online I started with Brendon Burchard. He was the one doing everything differently than every other online business selling products and his marketing strategies are really powerful.

Want more action in Forex?

Every individual will find that different time frames work best for them. Some might like lower time frames more than those high time frames.

I understand that there’s not much action on daily charts and it might get really boring working on them. If you find this a big problem don’t even switch to a monthly chart. Did you knew it takes a month for that price candle to close? Try and wait until Moving Averages will cross on a monthly chart. I think my son will start going to school even before this happens.

15 minute or even 5 minute charts, yeah, that’s what I am talking about. You will find that rush and adrenaline if you will trade currencies on those. I am not a fan of this, I never get lower than 1 hour chart, but for those who want action in Forex every day low time frames is the way to go.

But wait a minute? Why do you trade Forex? Do you want to find something that works and make money or do you want that rush feeling and adrenaline? You must decide, it could be that you cannot have both. But yet you can try. You could test trading strategies like I explained above, by automating them into trading robots and running for at least 12 months to see if they work. And while you have tests running go and play on 15 minute charts, feel that rush, get that action, enjoy that feeling of unpredictable currency trading.

Conclusion

You are the only person who can fight your procrastination and you must do this. No one else will remove this habit from you. If you want to become more successful and achieve more, then you need to outsmart yourself and make yourself do the things differently. Obviously it does not work that well the way you are doing it right now if you admit you have a procrastination problem. And you know that admitting you have a problem is the beginning to solving that problem.

Hope this was helpful. Please like and share this information with someone who needs it today.

I would be delighted if you post your questions and comments below.