As 2013 comes to an end, it’s an important time for a trader; it’s time for you to make an honest assessment of your trading performance over the last year. This is an excellent opportunity for you to learn and grow, both as a trader and a person…it also gives you a good excuse to sneak away from the invasion of relatives in your house and look “busy” on your laptop for a while.
Seriously, whether you’ve had a bad trading year, good one or somewhere in between, it’s time for an honest self-assessment of the things you did right and wrong over the course of the 2013 trading year. To be the trader you want to be, you’ll need to own up to the mistakes you’re making and figure out a way to avoid them moving forward. If you can’t be honest with yourself about your trading performance in 2013 and own up to the mistakes you committed, you stand little chance of turning the ship around in 2014.
If you’re ready to take an honest look at how you did this last year in the market and devise a plan of action to firm up your trading in 2014, then read on. If you are the type of trader with a big ego who doesn’t want to admit to your mistakes, then it’s best to stop here. The exercise I’m going to put forward in today’s lesson will hopefully be the jumping off point for a much improved year ahead in the market for you…if you can let down your defenses and really absorb what I am trying to convey…
Reminder: ‘New Year’ Membership Promotion – Until January 31st, I’m Offering A Special Discount On My Forex Courses, Daily Trade Setups Newsletter, Live Trading Forum & Email Support – For More Info Click Here
Don’t look at the markets for at least one week
The first thing I want you to do for this end-of-year trading assessment, is to take a week off from the markets, ideally two weeks…completely off. Don’t look at your charts, don’t watch CNBC, and don’t do anything trading-related (besides reading and learning of course) for at least one full week. Typically, the week of Christmas and the following New Year’s week is pretty slow in the market anyways, so these are a good two weeks to stop trading and just reflect on and assess your performance over the last year.
It is vitally important that you actually physically and mentally remove yourself from the market over this one or two week period, if you don’t, then this whole exercise I’m outlining here today won’t work…you need a clean slate to start off 2014 the right way.
Make a ‘Pros and Cons’ list of your 2013 trading performance
During your time off from the market, I want you to sit down and write out a ‘Pro and Con’ list of your trading performance over 2013. You may want to review your trading account history before doing this, you may not, it’s up to you, whatever you do, just be very honest about each pro and con, if you lie or cheat you’re only hurting yourself.
Here’s a brief example of how your 2013 Trading Performance Pro and Con List might look (you can of course write yours out by hand or type it):
This pro and con list is basically a checklist of things you did right and wrong over the last year and if you do it honestly and correctly it should give you a nice list of what you need to change to improve your trading in 2014. Trading is all about learning and growing as both a trader and person, and if you’re not honest with yourself about mistakes you’ve made, you’re going to have a rough trading road ahead. Layout a new or amended trading plan for yourself for the New Year that addresses all the issues you faced in 2013.
Make a commitment to yourself for 2014
Trading is something that for most of us, primarily takes place inside of our own heads, we have the ultimate say in whether we take a trade or not and we are the ones most affected by our trading decisions. If you feel like 2013 was a failure, and you lost more money than you care to think about, then it’s time to take all that negative energy and turn it into something positive.
You need to make a commitment to yourself in 2014. Commit to being the best trader you can be, to doing everything within your power to increase your chances of trading success. I believe that if you’re going to do something in life, you should give it everything you’ve got; try your hardest. If you have been over-trading and risking too much and generally just not following your trading plan and gambling your money away all year in the market, you are not trying your hardest to be the best trader you can be.
Trading success is the end result of persistent discipline, and you owe it to yourself to prove to yourself that you can muster the inner determination and will power to stop making all the emotional trading mistakes you made in 2013. I firmly believe that just about anyone who wants to become a successful trader can do it if they want it bad enough. Most traders defeat themselves before they really ever have a chance to make a run in the market. You should use your Pros and Cons list that I described above to start a transformation in 2014…transform yourself from an undisciplined gambler to a persistently disciplined and highly-skilled price action trader…only YOU can dig deep within yourself and make this happen. So, ask yourself, “How bad do I want it?” and let your answer be the spark to fuel your commitment to disciplined trading for 2014.
Take advantage of the clean slate (this is critical)
Finally, as bad as you might think your trading performance was in 2013, you’re going to have to try and forget about it and move on. There’s no sense in stewing over what’s already happened and what “might have been”, as long as you acknowledge the mistakes you made in 2013 and you’re actively attempting to correct them in 2014, you are on the right track. I know that many traders get depressed and frustrated after losing money in the market or blowing out their trading accounts, but if you want to become a successful trader you have to act and think like one, and there’s no room for negativity and self-pity in a successful trader’s mindset.
You need to use the start of the New Year as a spring board to proper trading. Understand however, that it will not necessarily be a quick and easy ‘road to riches’…you need to first develop the proper trading habits and focus on becoming a good trader, THEN the money will follow. Unfortunately, most traders approach trading from the opposite direction; they are worried too much about profits and rewards and quitting their jobs too early in the game, before they’ve developed the trading habits and skills that will allow them to achieve those things. What happens next is not pretty; their desire for profits and success in the market is so much stronger than their desire to do what is necessary to achieve those profits and success, that they inevitably end up losing money and blowing out trading accounts. Many traders have these failures because they are trying to “force” the trading success instead of putting in the effort to learn how to trade properly and develop their skills so that the success eventually comes naturally and so that it won’t be fleeting.
If you take away just one thing from today’s lesson, it should be to take advantage of the clean slate that the New Year provides you with, don’t squander it. So many people start workout programs and join gyms the first month of the year, only to quit when it starts to get uncomfortable or they are late getting out of work one night. Similarly, many traders, if not most, throw all their preparation and planning out the window the first time they have to swallow a difficult loss. Those trades that stop you out by 1 or two 2 pips before swinging back in your favor can really knock the wind out of your ability to stay true to your trading plan and remain disciplined. But it is the very ability to stay the course even when you have tough losses that separates the pros from the amateurs. You cannot let every little hiccup derail your efforts to develop and maintain proper trading habits, keep that in mind as you begin 2014 with your clean trading slate.
Part of getting 2014 started with a clean trading slate, is trading with a clean and simple trading method like the price action strategy that I teach in my trading course. You cannot focus on remaining persistently disciplined in the market if you are constantly second-guessing your trading method or confused by all the indicators on your charts. Now is the time to start with a completely fresh trading mindset, and price action trading is in my opinion, the best method to assist you in cultivating and maintaining this mindset for 2014 and beyond.
Reminder: ‘New Year’ Membership Promotion – Until January 31st, I’m Offering A Special Discount On My Forex Courses, Daily Trade Setups Newsletter, Live Trading Forum & Email Support – For More Info Click Here
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