Just the other day, I got asked a question that seems to be on the minds of quite a number of traders, and it’s a fair question too.

“How long should it realistically take to get your trading to the point that it can replace your income and have it support you?”

Well there are three factors that determine the answer to this question.  The first two factors determine your starting point and the third determines how quickly you’ll get from your launch point to your destination, to your goal of consistent, comfortable and reliable trading.  Let’s examine each factor, and then we’ll bring them together and see what your time horizon looks like.

Factor #1 – your prior experience to trading which have similarities.

Like any other occupation, if you have experience in other jobs where the activities and related skills are similiar to those in trading, you can transfer those experiences and skills.  Having already gone through the learning phase in the previous activities accelerates your development in the skills needed to be a competent trader.

For example, if you have ever been a career gambler, 100% commission independent sales rep, or professional athlete, then you’ve had to learn to deal with probabilites in the outcomes of the activity itself, and the inherent fact that you win some and lose some.  Being able to deal emotionally with changing probabilities and and a fair number of times that things do NOT go as desired gives you a significant edge when it comes to trading because in trading, you will have to deal with numerous disappointments before you get to consistent trading and even after you arrive.

If you’ve only ever had jobs where the outcome of your efforts was very predictable, and the uncertainty of the result very low, then the very nature of the markets can be very aggravating and difficult to deal with emotionally.  The markets do as they will and there is nothing you can do to influence or control them.

Factor #2 – your prior experience working for yourself.

If you have successfully started up and run your own business before, then you have gone through the personal, mental and emotional learning curve necessary to be a self-directed trader.

Working for yourself involves the mindsets of delayed gratification, flexibility and adaptability, dealing with setbacks and failures that you just plain don’t encounter when you work for someone else as an employee.

You have to be able to envision what you’re building, develop the plan on how you’ll get there, including working through the necessary details to find what works, to effectively develop and systemize your processes, and then of course organize your operation.

You also have to be able to work for free for sometimes long periods without getting down or impatient, which can be very difficult for those who are used to putting in time and getting paid for their time, such as employees or those in the service fields.

Factor #3 – The type, quality and quantity of training you get

Those that are completely mistrusting and choose to go it completely alone are the most likely to take the longest to make it, if they ever do, provided of course that they survive their first few months.  Trading appears simple on the surface, but just as with most any business, there are a hundred different ways to do things, and you simply don’t have the time or capital to play and endless “try it and see”.  You’ve got so many different instruments to trade, from stocks, options, currencies, commodities, ETF’s, and more, plus you’ve got over 40 different general strategies and within each of those hundreds of different specific strategies and methods, the dozens of indicators, the different time frames to trade, the list goes on and on.

When you try to go it alone, grabbing bits and pieces from here and there, you extend your timeline tremendously, because of the inefficiency of this approach, but also because of the tremendous waste of trial and error.

If you choose to pursue shortcuts, magic pills and shiny ‘things’, without focusing on yourself and becoming knowledgeable and most importantly skilled on the right matters, then you may not be any better off than going it alone.  Training on how to use someone’s system is like training for a J-O-B, and not training to be a self-sufficient and independent trader.  If the training overwhelms you or the system doesn’t work or fails along the way, you’re stuck back at square one.  This is the pitfall into which many traders fall, and why many have several if not dozens of trading systems on the proverbial shelf, yet without a single one in hand with they can use.

If you pursue trader training which develops you into a knowing, proficient and capable trader, then your time frame becomes months instead of years.  When you can quickly and effectively take a trading strategy or system and make it work in a calculated and business-like manner, then you can stop searching for that ‘one that works’ and now focus on expanding what you do.  You no longer have your time, attention and resources consumed by surviving.  Your entire trading experience changes.

Instead of looking for the holy-grail system or bot, become the trader that knows how to identify poor or weak systems, how to fix them when broken, how to know that it will perform to your expectations, how to establish the confidence in it to make sticking to it easy, and then also how to adapt as thing change, as they always do.

Only 2% of all traders live the life knowing, confident and truly successful trading, while the rest struggle and eventually leave empty-handed.  In order to join this exclusive group, you must be willing to become a true professional, and focus on yourself first, getting good training on the right matters, not going it alone.   Only then does your arrival become visible on the time horizon.

If you go it alone and try to just be a lone wolf, figuring it all out all by yourself, then years is what you’re realistically looking at.  If you get the right trader training on the right skills, your time frame can be in a matter of months.

Step 1 for the fast-track can be found here, attending to your trading system skills to ensure consistent execution.