A trader should always start by taking an honest self-assessment of strengths and weakness, prioritize the highest impact areas and then focus on changing one area at a time.
One of the mistakes that traders make is to try to correct multiple issues at the same time.
Listing out your trading weaknesses can become something like New Year's resolutions.
You make a big list of things you want to change, and then forget about it and go back to the same habits and never make the desired corrections.
The important thing to do is to identify the areas that you want to improve and work on it until it get fixed.
Then move to the next area.
Change takes time and repetitions.
Success often comes from repeated practice of the way you want to behave, as opposed to the way you are currently behaving.
The hardest part of the process is consistently changing from a process that does not work to one that does work.
But once your mind starts to recognize and get comfortable with these new procedures, maintaining the change will be much easier.
So, how do we go about changing? Try to commit to one objective and focus on it.
Give yourself a month to work on a given issue, focusing on it each day in your trading journal.
Set up potential solutions and then try them out to see if they fit your personality and trading style.
Create a method to measure your progress.
For example, do you have trouble taking a loss at your predefined stop objective?Try trading very small for a month, and just work on following your system and taking each loss.
The financial impact will be small for a month, but the discipline you instill will last you for years if done properly.
You can take this approach with any issue you face.
Just remember to stay focused on one at a time until you are confident you have mastered it.
Get started by finding an area to work on and tackle it.
You might want to start with a weakness that is relatively minor so that you can feel a success quickly.
Or you might want to tackle your worse weakness first.
Either way, concentrate on a single item, master it, and move on.
One of the mistakes that traders make is to try to correct multiple issues at the same time.
Listing out your trading weaknesses can become something like New Year's resolutions.
You make a big list of things you want to change, and then forget about it and go back to the same habits and never make the desired corrections.
The important thing to do is to identify the areas that you want to improve and work on it until it get fixed.
Then move to the next area.
Change takes time and repetitions.
Success often comes from repeated practice of the way you want to behave, as opposed to the way you are currently behaving.
The hardest part of the process is consistently changing from a process that does not work to one that does work.
But once your mind starts to recognize and get comfortable with these new procedures, maintaining the change will be much easier.
So, how do we go about changing? Try to commit to one objective and focus on it.
Give yourself a month to work on a given issue, focusing on it each day in your trading journal.
Set up potential solutions and then try them out to see if they fit your personality and trading style.
Create a method to measure your progress.
For example, do you have trouble taking a loss at your predefined stop objective?Try trading very small for a month, and just work on following your system and taking each loss.
The financial impact will be small for a month, but the discipline you instill will last you for years if done properly.
You can take this approach with any issue you face.
Just remember to stay focused on one at a time until you are confident you have mastered it.
Get started by finding an area to work on and tackle it.
You might want to start with a weakness that is relatively minor so that you can feel a success quickly.
Or you might want to tackle your worse weakness first.
Either way, concentrate on a single item, master it, and move on.
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