Many people aspire to become full-time traders. One reason is the addictive nature of trading, and another is the perception that trading from home eliminates the need to go to work, deal with a boss's mood, or engage in office politics. The idea of making money by simply moving one's fingers at home seems like an ideal life.

Is full-time trading really as wonderful as it seems? I have been a full-time trader for 12 years, and I am very familiar with the rhythm of full-time trading. Today, I would like to share what I do daily and my feelings about being a full-time trader.

What do I do every day?

I usually wake up around 6:30 AM and go for a one-hour jog. If it rains, I head to the gym because I understand that good physical and mental health greatly affects trading outcomes. I don't smoke and rarely drink alcohol to avoid missing market opportunities.

At 9 AM, I start analyzing the market and select the trading opportunities for the day based on my trading system, and I formulate a corresponding trading plan. I have a habit of setting alerts on my trading software, which will automatically notify me when the market reaches the price I'm watching. This allows me to free up my hands to do other things, such as writing articles or communicating with other traders.

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The afternoon is essentially the same routine. I analyze the market, adjust the alerts, and continue to wait and do my own things. After the evening market closes, I conclude the day's trading.

From Monday to Friday, my trading pace is more or less like this. At the end of the week on Friday, I pull out the week's trading records, analyze the trading results, and identify any mistakes or omissions. If there are any, I write down plans for future responses and make adjustments to my trading rhythm.

Working from home as a full-time trader is like facing the computer, the market, and one's emotional fluctuations alone. I have a relatively disciplined personality, but many people indulge themselves, which makes it difficult to achieve profits.

Now, let me talk about my feelings about being a full-time trader.

First feeling: Full-time trading is quite boring.Because you are doing the same things every day, the early moments that felt the most thrilling and joyful were when you were continuously losing money. It's easy to lose money; just go all-in with every trade, and each transaction is filled with excitement. When you make a profit, you feel incredibly happy, but when you lose, it's excruciatingly painful. Your emotions are like a roller coaster.

On the contrary, once you start making a stable profit, trading becomes boring. Your trading system is already in place, and all you have to do every day is follow your trading plan and operate methodically, just like a worker on an assembly line, repeating the same task. The amounts of profit and loss are pretty much within your expectations, with no surprises and no dramatic emotional swings. Most of the time is spent waiting and executing, which can be quite dull.

For example, if your trading system is based on breaking out of triangle patterns, the first thing you do every morning when you trade is to look for triangle formations on your computer. After finding the pattern, you draw the trend lines, wait for the breakout point, set an alert, and when the alert goes off, you enter the order, set your stop loss and take profit, and then wait for the next pattern. This is how you spend your day, repeating it thousands or even tens of thousands of times. Can it not be boring?

The second feeling: trading alone makes self-discipline extremely challenging.

Trading from home means that there is no one to supervise you; you can only rely on self-discipline, which is very difficult.

The home environment is generally more relaxed, and your mental state will also be more lax. Sometimes you sleep in until the sun is high in the sky, sometimes you play with your phone, and then have a little drink, and before you know it, another day has passed.

Moreover, once you become a full-time trader, your concern for gains and losses becomes very heavy because trading becomes your only source of income. The slightest movement in the market can make you very nervous, and your mental state will be highly tense every day. You may be too excited to sleep at night, and it's hard to get up in the morning to monitor the market. Over time, your health may deteriorate, and your trading performance may suffer.

In the book "Trading for a Living," it is discussed that if you want to do well in trading, you first need an absolutely quiet working environment. Before trading, you should stabilize your emotions, focus your attention, and treat trading as a job. If you want to do trading well, you must enter a rigorous work state.

The reality is that if you want to make a profit as a full-time trader, you have to be like going to work, with even greater concentration, more rigor, and more seriousness. Otherwise, how can you expect to make money?

I do not particularly recommend that everyone becomes a full-time trader.Why is that? Because most people lack self-discipline. It's hard enough to get someone to eat less or smoke fewer cigarettes, let alone control their own behavior and emotions at home, especially in the face of trading. This is an extremely difficult task. I had to impose self-restraint because I've experienced ups and downs, and this process took me many years, costing me a heavy price.

Moreover, trading is a highly stressful job. You have to constantly play a game of chess with your own human nature, especially if you're a full-time trader. The gains and losses of trading determine the livelihood of your family, which adds even more pressure. This pressure can turn into negative emotions. If you have a family and work from home as a full-time trader, when negative emotions arise, you might do anything, which is very detrimental to family harmony.

If you really want to be a full-time trader, like I did in the early days, set up a separate office and trade every day as if you're going to work, creating a sense of ritual for yourself. This way, you can also have a quiet environment to think and trade.

In fact, I believe that for ordinary people like us, part-time trading is the best option. Having a stable job and using your spare money to trade in your spare time as a hobby can lead to a very stable mindset, and the more you trade, the smoother it gets.

When you have a choice, never put yourself in a desperate situation with no way back!