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I’ve been participating in a prop firm funding account challenge for the past few months.
If you’re not sure what a prop firm account is, here’s some brief information on how they work…
Funded trading accounts enable a Trader to get access to a substantial amount of funds, which a “Prop Funding firm” provides.
When the trader makes profits, the firm will split them with the Trader, where the Trader typically receives the majority of the profit share.
But before the Firm can allocate funds to the Trader, the Trader must prove themselves that they can trade and be profitable.
So the first step is for the trader to go through a challenge.
The Trader will purchase a Challenge, for a varying fee, according to the account size they want.
This fee is typically fully refundable on the condition the trader passes the challenge and makes a certain amount of profit in the real account.
For the challenge, the Trader will receive a demo account and must make the account profitable by a certain percentage, within a 30-day period.
If they meet the profit targets, then depending on the firm, the trader will receive a real account or would need to pass a second, final challenge.
Many firms provide a “free re-take” if the trader doesn’t pass the challenge but still gets the account in some profit.
This basically means that you don’t have to pay another fee to take a new challenge after failing the previous challenge.
So, in my case, this is my 2nd challenge, on a $10K account.
In the 1st challenge, I went from $10,000 down to $9600 or somewhere near that figure.
Then, literally on the last day of the challenge, I managed to end the balance at around $10,030:-).
Phew! This also meant I was handed another lifeline, ie another free 30-day challenge.
For the second attempt challenge, I did not activate it straight away, as I wanted to prepare for it properly.
Then a family tragedy happened, my Father sadly passed away.
I took some time out from trading to grieve for my Dad.
Then I activated my 2nd challenge, but to be honest my mind wasn’t on it due to my current situation with my Dad passing away.
For 2nd attempt challenge, this time, I think my performance was better in the sense that I was losing less than in the previous challenge!
As my timer was ticking away for 30 days, it was the last trading day, yesterday (24-06-23)
My account balance was at around $9,948 or somewhere near that balance.
So I woke up and I said to myself, my time-sensitive goal right now until the end of the trading day, is to get the account to at least just over $10,000.
If I could attain this mini goal, then I should be eligible for another free retake, ie a new 30-day challenge without paying a fee.
My whole mind then was just filled with thoughts on how I can achieve this goal.
Then I carried out some market analysis on the London session and identified some potential assets to trade.
As my strategies are based on trend trading, I identified that the AUD pairs were trending down.
So I took a few buy positions on GBPAUD and a few sells on AUDCHF.
A couple of hours later, just before the New York session opened (2 pm UK time), I accomplished my goal:-)
I ended the day with an account balance of $10,007.63
What I’ve learned from this experience, is that this time-sensitive goal kind of forced me into the relevant actions I needed to take, in order to increase. my probabilities of attaining the goal.
In addition, because it was a time-sensitive goal, I literally just put everything on hold that day and just directed my focus 100% on the thinking, strategy and action steps.
And it just worked “magically”.
Seriously I can’t describe it any better, but I truly believe that it’s something to do with time limitations that helped me and kicked me into massive action.
And this time-sensitivity aspect of the goal, I think played a big part in getting me motivated to accomplish the goal.
Another thing about goals I think is how badly you want to achieve your goal. This is where your “why” comes into play.
Why do you want to achieve the goal that you want, and what benefit will it provide you, once achieved?
Because, if your “why” is not strong enough, you won’t have the motivation to take action in a time-sensitive manner.
So to sum it up, I think it’s first important to have a goal that you really, badly want to achieve.
Then set a time deadline for it, and then work on it like crazy, with your mind, body, actions and every resource you can, until the last day of the goal.
Remember, do not give up until the last day, because you never know, you might just accomplish it on literally the last day as I did:-)