Essence of Trading: Don’t Forget Your Trading Goals
By Lawrence
Many people simply forgotten why they choose to trade or day trade.
Trading is an activity to seek profit. The time you spent on trading should be productive and profitable. More importantly, trading should be more profitable than, say, the salary of a comparatively stable career. It is not just the amount of money that you make should be more, it is also the time spent should be less. Otherwise, what is the point of becoming a trader in the first place?
Investing Your Time And Effort Wisely
In the beginning, as there are so many things to learn and pickup, it is normal you spend enormous amount of time in front of the screen. You need to learn the basics of order entries, your trading / charting platform(s), minute details like the time of the regularly schedules news and economic reports, etc. Once those basic things have been picked up, however, there is no reason to glue yourself to the screen unless it is necessary.
Remember your goal in trading is not to learn all these auxiliary things. The goal is to become consistently profitable efficiently. Yet many people lose sight of the big picture which is to build a successful trading career. Instead, they are side-tracked to pursuit things that are not important to the ultimate goal.
Better Planning
When you do not know what your challenges are, how can you plan your goals or objectives six months down the road? Personally, I do not believe that is possible.
Instead of giving yourselves a hard time to just staring at the screen all day and trying to learn "tape reading" that your buddy or a guru website telling you, why not schedule a fixed amount of time everyday to do just that. Then plan and schedule the rest of your time to study other aspects of trading. Give yourself flexibility in scheduling but remember to give yourself specific short term goals. That motivates you to accomplish more.
Be Your Own Coach
There is no need to pressure yourself into rushing through things that you need to explore more. Only after giving your best to learn something would you understand, or maybe have a glimpse of the level of difficulties of the challenge. Pace yourself so that you are comfortable with your progress, and then be the judge of your own performance. There is no one else there to evaluate your progress except you. In fact you are probably the best person to do that.
In another words, you are designing your own learning curriculum to fit your own time schedule and need. Then you have to wear the hat of a tough training coach from time to time to judge yourself and evaluate your progress. By focusing on your own weaknesses, you will be able to give yourself directions on areas to improve. As you improve slowly in various aspects related to trading, it will show up in your trading performance.
The path to trading success is not necessary the discovery of a holy grail. For most of us, it is the accumulation of learning to do all the little things right over time.
