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Are You Fully Prepared for Full-Time Trading?

Something that a lot of new and experienced traders aim for is to be able to trade full time, to be able to get rid of that 9-5 or longer job, and spend your time making money on the markets. While it is a possibility, many people are not fully prepared for it. In fact, many people do not fully understand what it actually means to be a full-time trader, the lifestyle changes, the time it takes, the money required, and the risks that come with it.

So we are going to briefly look at the sort of things that you will need to prepare for in case you wanted to make the leap to becoming a full-time trader.

Are you prepared to leave the stability of a job?

Having a job can be a pain, especially if you do not enjoy your job, but are you prepared to get rid of it? Think about the things that it gives you, stability, and a form of financial safety are some of the main ones. You have a guaranteed income at the end of the month, would you be able to give that up for a salary that could be more, but also could be a lot less. Not having that stability can mean that some bills may not get paid, would you be able to survive that with savings or any other incomes?

Are you actually prepared for it?

So you may say that you are ready, but are you prepared for it, how is your strategy holding up? How long have you been trading with it successfully? We have seen traders in the past have a good month and then want to become a full-time trader, you will need years of consistent results to get to that stage, not just a month. You need to ensure that your strategy and finances are prepared for the change in dependency on them over a job.

Set realistic goals:

While you may wish to become a full-time trader, do not set your goals too early, you need to have realistic goals instead, ensure that you are able to give yourself enough time to gain enough knowledge and do you have enough money in your account to sustain you? Bear in mind that it takes most people years to get to that stage, so you should be setting your goals at a similar timescale.

Can you handle the lifestyle change?

Stepping away from the 9-5 job and your usual routine can be a big change, a really big change. In fact, it is not something that everyone is able to deal with. Are you able to motivate yourself to work? That is a big question as a lot of people will say yes, but when it comes to actually doing it, they don’t have the motivation. Not only is it quite difficult to motivate yourself to get up and work, but it can be difficult to get yourself motivated to stay working for a full 8 hours or so. So you really need to ask yourself if you are able to do that before you think of going full-time.

Can you treat trading like a business?

Once you go full time, it is important to understand that you are no longer working for you, you need to be able to treat your trading as a business, you need to get the understanding that this is no longer you playing with your own money, but it is your livelihood. Treat it like a business, work with the money and with risk management similar to you would if working for someone else, would you take those risks if you were still employed, if you are not able to control yourself and cannot take out those additional risks of working for yourself then you probably shouldn’t.

So those are some of the things you need to consider, it is a huge thing to go full-time, something that we would not recommend to the majority of people due to it being such a huge change and the pressures that it can put on you can cause a lot of frustrations and problems for those that are not properly prepared.