I would say that first you must understand your personality, objectives, work preferences and ideal lifestyle by thinking through your trading objectives.

Then you need to choose a trading strategy that works and design a trading system that fits with the four personal considerations above. Your system must also give you a reliable edge in the market.

Write a trading plan that covers all of the actions you will need to take to trade your money on a day-to-day basis so that your decisions are predetermined. This means you don’t have to make difficult decisions in the heat of the moment.

When your emotions run high, intelligence runs low, so it is far more profitable to make your decisions in advance. e.g. “If this happens then I will do that”. Most people lose money because they make silly emotional decisions rather than following a structured plan.

Risk a VERY small amount of your account on each trade. Only by doing this will you survive long enough to realize the potential of your trading system.

Finally – Learn the most important lessons early from a mentor or coach rather than by accident in your account – One is cheap compared to the other…even if it may not feel that way at the beginning!

Download and read lots of documents like my free report:

If i had 1 minute with a new trader, what would i say?
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Adrian Reid Founder and CEO
Adrian is a full-time private trader based in Australia and also the Founder and Trading Coach at Enlightened Stock Trading, which focuses on educating and supporting traders on their journey to profitable systems trading. Following his successful adoption of systematic trading which generated him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year using just 30 minutes a day to manage his system trading workflow, Adrian made the easy decision to leave his professional work in the corporate world in 2012. Adrian trades long/short across US, Australian and international stock markets and the cryptocurrency markets. His trading systems are now fully automated and have consistently outperformed international share markets with dramatically reduced risk over the past 20+ years. Adrian focuses on building portfolios of profitable, stable and robust long term trading systems to beat market returns with high risk adjusted returns. Adrian teaches traders from all over the world how to get profitable, confident and consistent by trading systematically and backtesting their own trading systems. He helps profitable traders grow and smooth returns by implementing a portfolio of trading systems to make money from different markets and market conditions.