The Only Secret is in Loving the Game

What motivates you in doing the job of a trader? Have you ever asked this question yourself? This question applies to every aspect of one’s life and not just to trading. Although here I want to stay focused on the matter that is most relevant to us, but doing the same exercise for multiple areas of our lives can be a great idea because the ultimate scope is to find new ways to improve the quality of our days on a broader scale.

Since I cannot really know about your answer, I’ll be doing this one exercise myself that hopefully will give some good insights or added value to you. The first time I’ve really raised the question about motivating myself I was still working as an automotive engineer. I knew that there were no more lies I could have kept telling myself. I was feeling over it, and I was out of energy to to make a difference.

Of course, I could have remained there working for multiple years or even to the time when I’d have retired but, in the end, I knew that I’d have regretted to not have followed my gut, instinct, passion or dream (or just call it the way you like it the most). Regret is poison, it’s the absolute worst. You can think I was really brave but here is what I actually think. The fear of living a flat and monotonous life was way too depressing for me to not find the courage to act for a change.

If Your Intent is Pure You Will Win

Now, I really don’t want to talk about that part of the story anymore, otherwise I’ll be off-topic (if you are interested to know more about it here are two articles about my story and final decision). Coming back to that one question about motivation to be a trader, for me, it wasn’t the desire of becoming a millionaire overnight or to possess luxury cars, homes or anything like that. So, if this is your motivation, I’d ask you to think twice, because that one can be a costly illusion.

The only secret resides in loving the game. I literally love the game with all my heart, bones and skin. I can assure you that if I’d not have had true passion for analyzing the market sentiment, observing charts, watching price action and generally executing them every single day, I’d have given up on it long ago. That’s why 90% of traders ultimately fail to achieve the goal of making money consistently. It’s not about being talented or smart enough. It’s because their motivation isn’t pure, so they are not willing to work hard enough to achieve the most important goal that is reaching financial freedom.

But if your intent is pure you’ll win. It doesn’t really matter how long it will take to get there because each path to the ultimate goal is different. In order to come out on top of this mountain we need to keep on trusting the process, learning from failures, celebrating well managed trades and most importantly, loving the trading game itself. Enjoy the effort of keep on keepin’ on, because the reward of watching the landscape from thetop is priceless and will feed the motivation to continue the journey to the next level.

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan

Talk to you in chat room!

Trade safe,

Roberto Barbaro