Many new traders are attracted to the world of trading thinking that trading will make them an overnight millionaire. Trading is hard work like any other profession and thinking that traders make money without much effort could be further from reality.

Whether investing, swing trading or day trading, you must commit a lot of time and effort to make a living. Trading is as much as a job as any other work. It will certainly pay you what you’re worth!

You have to be willing to learn to earn. This is a never ending learning journey and you must have the attitude of constant learning and executing your learning. Money management and determining your risk is a good start! You must pre-determine your profit and loss capacity. Risking too much or too little can turn into a failure.

Find your own trading style and create a strategy and stick with it. Do not tweak your strategy on a daily basis. Let it run for few days before you make a change. Day trading can bring massive profits in a matter of minutes and on the flip side make you lose everything too. What works for you may not work for others and vice versa.

Success in any profession can be broken down into a number of critical factors. Trading is no different.

Constant learning: You must keep an edge over the others. You will need to tweak your strategies and observations regularly.

Discipline: Executing with strategy and sticking to the plan is probably the most challenging thing for a trader. Measure your trading success against your trading plan not the actual outcome of the trade. Even loss derived from a well planned execution is a good trade.

Risk: Calculate your risk and play within that number. It is very important to establish the maximum expected draw down and set money management rules accordingly.

Have a Plan: This should dictate what you will do in any given opportunity. Prepare yourself before the market opens e.g. read the news, technical analysis, previous day numbers and how the other markets are doing.

Responsibility: Take responsibility for every trade.

Commitment: Trading is not like a 9 to 5 job! You must have a plan and execute it every trading day. You get paid only if the trades are executed and turn profit. You must set aside some time everyday to measure your success and failures. You also need to set aside some time to evaluate your current plan and develop new strategies and trading plans.