What Do Professional Athletes Teach You About Forex Trading?

amateur traders. What can you learn from professional athletes that could help you in trading? Here are the top three things they can teach you that could help you in forex trading.

1. Do not be afraid of failure

Be it living football legend Lionel Messi or cricket superstar Virat Kholi, nobody makes a name in sports overnight. The same is the case with professional traders. The odds of becoming a top professional forex trader and a successful athlete are low.

Athletes have to put in sweat and hard work, working on the same routine repeatedly until they get better. Perfection does not exist. They know there is always a faster runner or quick batsman than there will ever be. So they work extra to get better, even if the results do not suit them.  

Michael Jordan, a professional basketball player, can attest to this. He had failed numerous times before taking gold home in the 1984 and 1992 Olympics. If those failures had stopped him, there would be no Michael Jordan in basketball history. The trajectory of your trading career would be something like this.  In the initial days of your trading career, you will be less likely to see the results you would expect to see.

However, it does not mean you will never be able to come out of them. They indicate that you need to take a different approach. Identify your mistakes. What could you be doing wrong? Beginner traders need help with creating a trading strategy, so test your trading strategies on a demo trading account multiple times before implementing them on the live market. Demo trading will help you test your strategy from different angles, giving you a broader horizon on how to adapt your strategy in different market scenarios.

Live trading is overwhelming, unlike demo trading, where there is no risk. Its fast-paced nature takes work to keep up with. So, trade with low capital and a smaller risk. But note that losses will happen; as professional athletes lose sometimes, you, too, as a trader, will suffer blows. And it’s okay. What you should not do is get scared by them. Accept your mistakes, learn from them, and move on so you can sustain longer in the market.

• Prioritise long-term success over instant gratification
  

In the era of digitisation, where everything gets delivered at lightning speed, we need more patience. We all want things to happen instantly, and the thought of waiting makes people lazy. This may be the reason why many new traders quit and abandon their trading accounts before even trying them.

Take a look at the athletes. Some work hard for years, without any complaints, to have their moments. How do they do it? Sit in silence and work hard. Requiring both mental and technical resilience, the market tests traders on many trading aspects – technical and fundamental analysis, trading psychology, risk management, money management, and time management. There is no ideal way or time to have a grasp of these skills.

Some take one or two years, while others take more than that. However, one thing is sure: if you maintain continuity, you will see progress. Athletes do this better, and that’s why there is so much to learn from them. If you have opened a Forex brokerage using a reputed white label broker, then you must have paid Forex white label cost along with other expenses, but don’t let these costs bother you too much. Consider it as a part of the investment because the cost of starting with a reputed white label broker is going to cover much faster because of the quality of features and high trust level. You need to stay patient and focus on the process, and you will soon be profitable.

Instead of looking for success in small wins, they keep moving forward, regardless of how many matches they win or lose. They have set targets. For example, ” I want to become a national player and will not stop until I become that.”

Similarly, traders need to set targets as well. These could be as low as making $100 in profits from trading every week, followed by planning. If you need help with this, use trading calculators. There are different calculators available to calculate different trading values, which will help you set appropriate targets and trade within your risk tolerance. It is possible that you will not achieve your targets in one go. But you should keep learning and trading until you achieve your target. Once it is achieved, you can set a higher target, building your way up for long-term success.   

• They avoid overthinking
  

Professional athletes also feel pressured when they think about winning the game. They, too, act on their feelings and worry about the worst possible outcome for themselves. This is a natural response when one is placed in a highly competitive environment where everyone is equally talented and hard-working.

Of all those, only a few keep their emotions aside for a while, focus only on the game, and emerge victorious. Traders face the same situation. When they open a trade, they think about losing against the market. They fear what happens if the market moves against them, putting their trades at higher risk.

But where does this overthinking take you? Nowhere! Professional traders overcome this by only focusing on what they can do at the moment. And so should you. Rather than worrying about what’s at risk, use tools and knowledge to counter that risk. For example, traders often struggle with implementing complex strategies on their own. If you have tested your strategy, then you can automate it using the Meta Trader 5 trading platform. The advanced trading software will implement your strategy with minimal assistance, preventing human errors and putting less strain on you.

Another way to avoid overthinking is to live in the moment. If you have opened a trade, follow all the rules and strategies you have planned to conduct it. Do not make instantaneous changes. Playing by a rulebook will give you less time to think about consequences. However, in case you lose, focus on reviewing and studying your loss. So the next time, you do not make the same mistakes. 

Conclusion

Athletes and forex traders have a lot in common, such as the lengthy time it takes to become successful in their respective fields. You can learn many things from athletes; these include emotional resilience, proper planning, and how to trade confidently. Setbacks are common in every field, but we are never looking for the light at the end of the tunnel.

Always look up to those who have done it before you to keep the motivation flowing. If you have friends who are professional athletes and traders, do reach out to them to understand how they honed their skills and psychology. You are not alone. Always keep learning and interacting. You do not know what you could learn about trading from the people around you.