Exactly What Goes Into Making A Successful Forex Trader?

If you were to separate Forex traders into two groups � those who are successful and those who are less than successful � would it be possible to pick out the characteristics which differentiate the two groups?

It does not really matter what we do in life, which includes foreign currency trading, however, no matter what we do, one thing that will have more affect on our success than anything else will be goal setting.

It is a simple fact that the human brain is at its best when it is given a roadmap to follow and, by setting yourself a goal, you begin the process of building your roadmap by defining the destination for your journey. But setting a destination is not enough and you will also need to define the route which you are going to follow to get to your destination. Here is an example.

Imagine you decide you want to build a fortune as a foreign currency trader, who doesn't after all! This in itself is not however much help as any goal that you set yourself needs to be measurable, otherwise you have no way of knowing whether or not you have reached it. So, at this stage, you need to be clear about just what you mean by a 'fortune'.

Let us assume therefore you set yourself a goal of making $1,000,000 in the next twelve months. Now you have a clearly defined destination. The next problem is that, as you are almost certainly a newcomer to the world of foreign currency trading, are still coming to grips with the ropes and may have only limited money to invest at this stage, making $1,000,000 in the next twelve months is possibly not that realistic a goal.

In addition to being measurable, any goal also has to be realistic. It does not matter what goal you set yourself in foreign currency trading, but it has to be within your reach. There is little point in saying that you intend to win Wimbledon if you have never even held a tennis racket.

So, instead of aiming for $1,000,000 let us set a more realistic target of say $120,000. Having done this, we then need to split this figure up into marker posts to add to our roadmap and this can be achieved by viewing our target on a monthly instead of a yearly basis. This gives us a dozen $10,000 markers. Now, if we continue along these lines we can then break our goal down further into $2,500 weekly markers.

At this point we have got something that we are able to examine against our current and recent experience and it is a reasonably easy matter to see whether or not this figure is reachable. Is it feasible, against the background of your current experience, to make $2,500 trading foreign currencies in the coming week?

Your goals have to be measurable and realistic, but they must also be attainable. It is one thing to set yourself a realistic goal, but you also need to have the right tools, in the right place at the right time to reach that goal. If you are currently making $750 a week then you probably won't convert this into $2,500 overnight so, in this case, your goal is unattainable and you will need to go back to square one and start over again.

However, if $2,500 is feasible, then there is just one further step that you need to take before you are ready to set off on your journey. This final step is to paint a picture in your mind's eye of your destination.

Although you have set yourself a target of making $120,000 in the next twelve months, the money by itself is of course not really what you are aiming for, but it is what you can do with the money that is important. So, once you have got your $120,000 what are you going to do with it? If you want to buy yourself a new SUV then paint yourself a picture of driving into the sunset with the roof down and then you really have got a goal.

If you want to achieve success in foreign currency trading then you must set yourself a goal that is measurable, realistic and attainable and paint a picture of your goal in your mind's eye. Do this and you will be surprised at just how easy a matter it is to get to your destination.