My Trading Journey In 4 Phases

Listen to this week’s article as a podcast on the Web, Apple, Spotify, Amazon, or tune in below.

---

Announcement:

I've dedicated significant time and effort to create and sustain this newsletter, aiming to deliver valuable content and support your trading journey. Recently, I introduced an audio version of the newsletter, which demands more of my time. While I'm committed to providing value, I've reached a decision that reflects the value of my time.

Starting now, the newsletter will transition to a paid service priced at $5 per month. The free plan will include one newsletter each month, while the paid plan will provide access to all weekly newsletters, exclusive discounts, and live class access.

Today’s newsletter marks the conclusion of the free service, and I wanted to make it different and take some suggestions into account. Let's delve into today's topic.

---

My Trading Journey In 4 Phases

Every now and then, I receive suggestions from traders requesting me to talk about my trading career. So, in this newsletter, I'm excited to offer you a more personal look at my trading journey, with the hope that it will inspire you on your own trading path.

I'll be sharing the ups and downs I've faced along the way, and to keep things clear, I've divided my journey into four phases:

• Phase 1: The Beginning

• Phase 2: The Hurdle

• Phase 3: The Take-Off

• Phase 4: The Rewards

So, let's dive in!

Phase 1: The Beginning

My journey into the world of forex trading started back when I was finishing up my university graduate program. It was a friend who first introduced me to the concept of forex, and at that time, trading was still quite mysterious in my home country, Portugal. Most people there thought it was a shady business and many of them, a scam. But I was captivated by the idea of being independent and understanding more about the markets. So my interest started to grow but there was disbelief I would be ever capable of making it. My academic background was in sciences, and I had no prior knowledge of mathematics or economics – skills I believed were crucial for trading success. However, my friend, who had no such background either, was already making money in the markets so that made me want to explore trading.

As time passed, I finished my studies and started a 9-5 job. It took me just one week in that job to realize that it wasn't the path I wanted to follow. Just like that, I was putting into question all the years, money, and effort that took me to complete my university course.

The Key Moment

There was a key moment at my workplace when I gained the courage to ask a colleague how much he was making at that job. Money was a sensitive topic in our workplace, but I needed to understand what my financial future would look like if I stayed there (I was in a government internship and my wage was different than a normal employee there). My colleague proudly revealed that he earned between 900 and 1k euros per month, even after working for five years. What surprised me most was that he had received one or two raises during that time, so he started from an 800-euro salary only.

The first thought that came to my mind was: I need to get out of here. That moment served as a wake-up call, I didn’t see myself working there not even one more day. I knew I had to leave and trading was the only way out. I considered other job options and further education, but I realized that my goal was not solely financial independence – it was the ability to control my time, location, and purpose. That day gave me the clarity I needed to start making trading a priority. My Plan B quickly became my only plan. Even if I had to return to a full-time job, I knew jobs would always be available, but time was not.

I ended up quitting my job some weeks after and decided to replace it with a part-time job that had no connection to my academic background. This allowed me to cover my basic expenses while dedicating more time to trading. I opened a small live trading account with some savings and started from there.

Biggest Obstacle

In this initial phase, the biggest challenge I faced was the overwhelming amount of information available on trading strategies and technical analysis out there. It wasn't a lack of resources but the anxiety of selecting the right starting point that paralyzed me. Each time I started to learn a particular mentor's teachings, the fear of missing out (FOMO) would set in, making me think I needed to explore more, learn more, and cover every aspect.

How I Overcame It

At some point, I felt overwhelmed with so much information and it started to get obvious I couldn't cover it all. I realized that accumulating more knowledge about technicals wouldn't necessarily make me a better trader. Trading was a performance skill that required practice and execution, not endless studying.

At the time I had some higher timeframe foundations from different mentors and started to put things together in a simplistic strategy. It felt like some piece was missing but that was just my FOMO speaking, I had to start performing.

Later on, I found a mentor who taught me a lot about intraday moves and patterns. My love for trading started to grow and I went from swing strategy to day trading strategy, which clicked better with me. I picked his way of seeing the market and started to trade his strategy. Over time and with practice I adjusted the strategy for myself, understood what most resonated with me and what not, and kept following my path. Eventually, I started to diverge from the initial strategy and developed my own way of seeing the market.

Phase 2: The Hurdle

I was playing my own game, following the path I had drawn for myself, not the one I was supposed to.

At this point, I was both working part-time and trading, and the pace at what I was learning was much faster because I had more time. I kept on trading my small live account and started my initial drawdown. I knew trading was hard but at the time my expectations were clearly not aligned with reality. That drawdown was very frustrating for me and it felt like I was wasting time.

One significant turning point during this phase was to realize the connection between trading and psychology. That fed my purpose and made me persist.

If in the previous phase, I had no idea of what I was doing, in this one I started to create my trading routine, journals, and good habits. I started to focus on the process by giving trading another meaning other than just money. Probably one of the best decisions I’ve made was to start to journal very early in my trading career. I started to improve some weak points in the execution and know where the biggest losses were coming from.

Biggest Obstacle

The biggest obstacle of this phase was the uncertainty. I had changed the life path I was supposed to follow and nobody accepted that well, especially my family. I was alone.

How I Overcame It

I had to shift my mindset. I started living by the belief that even if I was having no results, it was still more honorable to fight for something I believed in than to put on a mask every day to go to a job and have no time to chase my goals. I was proud of my journey, even without concrete results, because I had the courage to chase a different path unlike many of my work colleagues who were stuck in jobs they didn't enjoy due to responsibilities like mortgages and kids. They didn’t have a choice, they were trapped, and I was determined not to end up in the same situation.

Phase 3: The Take-Off

I persisted and kept on doing my best to execute well and refine my strategy. Consistency in actions started to lead to consistency in results. I was able to eliminate big losses completely and reach the breakeven stage with my account. It was a very good feeling to cover all the lost money from the previous mistakes and be able to arrive at breakeven again. That feedback made me keep going until I started to slowly get out of breakeven. It was an exciting moment. This was the phase where I started to collect the fruits of my consistency. I funded my account with more savings (profits from invested capital) and scaled up.

My confidence as a trader started to grow and with more money to trade, more responsibility. I kept on journaling, analyzing my trades, and refining edge and execution. That was the point where I got truly confident about my technicals, could isolate myself from other traders’ opinions, and lay my game.

Here, I started to share my journey on social media. Later on, started this newsletter (2 years ago) and moved to Spain.

Biggest Obstacle

The obstacles in this phase were different, more about specific trading mistakes. One of the toughest challenges for me was missing out on trades. I'd often hesitate to enter a trade - perfectionist move - only to watch the price taking off without me. I’d sometimes make a late entry or take a poor setup to compensate for the missed move. I was chasing the market and that was the reason for my losses.

How I Overcame It

My strategy was formed but it still had a lot of blind spots and areas that needed improvement. I went back to my post-trade analysis and started to collect even more trades and analyze them in 3 phases: entry, management, and exit to see how and what I could improve. This raised my confidence a lot in my strategy. It was through this ongoing analysis that I realized I could improve entries, use a smaller stop-loss size which would improve my risk-to-reward without affecting the win rate, let certain trades run to maximize profits, and manually close trades if specific conditions weren't met. This improved my confidence. I started to practice executing without the interference of the self-talk telling me to wait for more unnecessary confirmation. I knew what I was looking for.

Phase 4: The Rewards

This is the phase I’m at right now. I’ve gone through a lot of drawdowns, losing streaks, great winners, frustrations, fear, and overconfidence. Over time I’ve been able to improve my self-awareness and self-regulation skills to a level I wasn’t even aware of before I started this journey. Trading opened my eyes in many aspects and it saved my life.

The obstacles in this phase keep on happening, but the most difficult one for me and for many of you is to come back from drawdown periods.

In this phase, I had my toughest drawdowns, especially one that cost me a lot of time, energy, and self-control to get out of.

The best way I found to go about them is to step back and spend some time revisiting the big picture. Our day-to-day live trading sessions put us in a tunnel vision that we cannot stay indifferent about. We’re human and we’re biased. Fear kicks in and it interferes with our execution even if we don’t want it. That’s why in big or small drawdowns, I always take some time to go back to my post-trade analysis, analyze past trades in big samples, and most importantly, revisit those great winners. This gives me a lot of the confidence back which helps with mitigating the fear. At the same time, looking at the past winners helps me remind myself of my biggest strengths and how to bring them back to recover from the current drawdown.

For the rest, I’m still learning how to overcome the obstacles that come my way, and I’ll always be.

I could keep writing about this phase forever but if there’s something I wanna pass on to you from this phase, is:

• Don’t get cocky, even when you feel like you've cracked the code, there's always room for growth, and often, these are the times the market’s just around the corner ready to give you a reality check.

• Strategies don’t make money, traders do. Focus on improving execution while refining strategy.

• Risk management is the biggest edge.

• Disrespecting one of your trading rules is like disrespecting one of your life principles. Staying true to your strategy doesn’t only mean you’re disciplined, it also shows self-respect and integrity.

• Real-time trading might be enough to make you money but it’s not enough to reach your full potential as a trader. You need to collect data and analyze it to adapt your execution overtime.

• Your off-charts routine matters as much as the in-charts one.

• Prioritize your basic needs, and never underestimate the importance of sleep. I can say that there hasn't been a single day where I didn't regret trading when I neglected to get enough sleep.

Task Of The Week

One big lesson I've taken from trading is that persistence is key, and it applies to the whole process. In the beginning, it's about sticking with it despite the fear of uncertainty. Later on, it's about bouncing back from drawdowns and tough losing days or weeks.

I've learned that if I let the results of each trading day dictate my emotions, life becomes a roller coaster and nobody wants to live that way. So, I've made peace with the ups and downs and learned to incorporate other passions in my life. This allows me to create a better support system to help me endure the thought trading periods, and it’s been working really well.

So this week's challenge is about building your own routine. Don't chain yourself to the charts all day. Think about your strengths and passions, and make time for them. Don't hold back. You will find that living a purposeful life that meets most of your strengths will indirectly improve your trading.

With love,

Sara

---

Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. My E-Book: Building The Mindset Of a Trader: Includes practical activities that you can directly apply in your trading and see real-time progress, private community access, and live class invitations.

2. The Peak Performance Trading Program: Fix your trading mistakes, break through a ceiling of performance, and level up your game with your own trading system.

3. My Twitter: Read daily nuggets of wisdom and practical steps to improve your trading psychology & performance.

---

If you liked this episode, click the like button to support my work. If you loved it, I would appreciate a share:

---

Visit my website for more info and services: