Mentioning 'full-time trading',
what image comes to your mind?

Is it sitting on the beach in Bali,
sipping coconut juice while clicking the mouse,
earning thousands of dollars effortlessly?
Or watching the fluctuating red and green numbers on multiple screens,
strategizing and making decisions from afar?

If that's the case,
I must first throw a bucket of cold water:
That's not professional trading,
that's a scene from a movie,
or an illusion sold to you by course instructors.

Real professional trading,
is often dull, lonely,
and even filled with self-doubt.
But at the same time, it is one of the fairest,
most free professions in the world.
— The prerequisite is,
that you truly treat it as a 'profession',
and not as a 'casino'.

To take trading as a livelihood,
it’s not about luck,
but about a complete business logic.

Today, let’s talk about how
ordinary people can cross that chasm,
truly turning trading into a profession.

📌Step 1:
The shift in identity — you are the CEO of a 'startup'.

Most people fail at trading,
because they see themselves as 'players'.

What do players care about?
It's excitement, it's thrill,
it's that heart-pounding feeling after a big bet.
When they win, they feel like stock gods,
and when they lose, they think the market is against them.

But professional traders,
the first awareness they need to establish is:
I am a businessman,
I run a company called 'my own capital'.

In this company:
your principal,
is not pocket money to squander,
but your raw materials and inventory.

Your trading strategy,
is your production line.

Your stop-loss is not bad luck,
but your operational cost
(just like paying rent and utilities).
Your profit is the net income after deducting costs.

When you see yourself as a CEO,
your perspective changes completely.
You'll start to care about your 'raw materials' (capital),
you'll detest risks,
you'll no longer pursue massive profits on every single trade,
but instead pursue 'the long-term survival of the company'.

Remember, gamblers seek a quick fortune,
while professional traders seek continuous cash flow.

📌Step 2:
Wait like a crocodile, instead of jumping around like a monkey.

The biggest difference between novices and veterans,
lies in the 'frequency of actions'.

Novices are like a monkey in a cornfield,
they want to chase this candlestick,
they want to run from that news,
afraid of missing any opportunity.
If they don't make dozens of trades a day,
they feel like they haven't worked.

But professional traders,
are more like a crocodile lurking at the bottom of the water.

What do crocodiles do most of the time?
They sleep, they daze, they wait.
They might lie still in the water for three whole days,
not moving. Why?
Because the prey hasn't entered their 'kill zone'.
Professionalism means extreme restraint.

You need to build a trading system that belongs to you
(that is, your kill zone).
For example, you only trade trend breaks,
or you only trade on pullback supports.

When the market doesn’t align with your system,
even if it skyrockets,
you can only watch,
that's someone else's money, not yours.

Only when the market falls completely within your 'range',
can you open your mouth and bite down hard.

Treat trading as a profession,
most of the work is actually 'waiting' and 'boredom'.
As the financial giant Soros said:
'If trading feels exciting,
then you are likely losing money.
Good trading is usually boring.'

📌Step 3:
You need to understand not only 'offense' but also 'defense'.
If trading is a war,
many people only see
'how to attack' (how to buy),
but never think about 'how to retreat' (stop-loss and risk control).

To make a living from this,
risk control must be ingrained in you.
It sounds cliché,
but let me tell you why with a simple math problem:
If you lose 50%,
how much do you need to earn to break even?
The answer isn't 50%, but 100%.

If you lose 90%, how much do you need to earn?
The answer is 900%.

Do you see this cruel number?
In the world of professional trading,
survival is a thousand times more important than making big money.

Professional traders have a hard rule:
in every trade, never let your capital face a 'catastrophic' blow.
Usually, they limit their losses in a single trade to 1%-2% of total capital.

This means,
even if you have a streak of 20 wrong trades
(which is actually quite hard),
you still have most of your capital left,
with opportunities to bounce back.

What professionalism means,
is to take 'survival' to the extreme.

📌Step 4:
Establish a 'clock-in' routine.

Since it's a profession, there must be a professional process.
You can't just glance at the market when you feel like it,
and go to sleep when you don't.
You need to establish a rigorous
Daily Routine.

A typical day for a professional trader looks like this:
Pre-market preparation (morning meeting):
Check the overnight global news,
confirm if there are any major economic data releases today
(like non-farm payroll, interest rate decisions),
mark key support and resistance levels.
At this point, your plan is already in place,
and after the market opens, you just execute.

Intra-day execution (work):
wait for signals according to plan.
If the signal comes, decisively place the order,
set stop-loss and take-profit, then step back.
The worst thing is to keep staring at every fluctuation of the candlestick,
that will make you lose control and make foolish decisions.

Post-market review (summary): This is the most important step,
and also the step that 90% of retail traders are unwilling to do.

Why did you make money today? Was it luck or logic?
Why did you lose money today? Was it due to execution errors or market changes?

Writing a trading journal,
is the only shortcut to professionalism.
For every trade,
you need to record your thoughts, emotions, and reasons for entering.
Three months later, this notebook will become your most valuable mentor.

📌Step 5:
Cultivate a 'counterintuitive' mind.

Treating trading as a profession,
the hardest hurdle isn't technical analysis,
but psychological building.

The market is an amplifier of human nature.
Greed and fear are magnified a thousand times here.

When you make money, you become greedy,
thinking you didn’t earn enough on this trade,
wanting to increase your position, only to end up losing it all.

When you lose money, you become angry,
wanting to take revenge on the market, wanting to make back losses immediately,
only to sink deeper.

When there’s no market movement, you feel anxious,
afraid you won’t have an income this month,
forcing trades, which results in being slapped back and forth.

Professional traders are also human,
they have emotions too.
But their expertise lies in 'detachment'.

They train themselves to be third-party observers.
When losses occur, they don’t think 'I’m so unfortunate,
my money is gone', but rather 'this trade hit the stop-loss condition,
the system prompts exit, execution complete.'

They accept losses,
as naturally as breathing.
They know that losses are not failures,
but part of trading.
There’s no trading career without losses,
just like there’s no summer without rain.

🌈This is a lonely marathon.
In the end, I sincerely want to tell you:
Treating trading as a profession is a very difficult road.

There are no colleagues to complain to,
no boss to give you a guaranteed salary,
no social insurance or provident fund.
All the pressure is on you alone.
You might cry in front of the screen late at night,
or you might doubt life during months of continuous losses.

However, if you can survive the ignorance of the novice phase,
and endure the confusion of the exploration phase,
establish your own system,
and cultivate a steel-like mindset,

then,
you too will gain the most scarce thing in this world,
— true freedom.

That is the freedom to act without caring about anyone's face,
the freedom to survive as long as there's an internet connection,
the dignity of monetizing your knowledge.

Starting today, try to change:
no longer placing trades for excitement,
but acting to execute your plan.
No longer fixating on the fluctuations of your account balance,
but focusing on whether your trading logic is closed-loop.
Treat trading as a serious business.
Even if the start is slow, as long as the path is correct, there's no fear of distance.
I wish you find your composure amid the fluctuations of candlesticks.

If you also want to join a supportive trading community,
leave a message 【+1】

⚠️Disclaimer
All content is only personal opinion,
not financial advice (Not Financial Advice)
Please conduct independent research based on your situation!