How To Make 2015 Your Best Trading Year Yet

The holidays are over and here you are, sitting at your computer hoping that 2015 is a better trading year than last year. Well, I am here to tell you that ‘hope’ has no real place in a trader’s mind and if you hope too much, you will hope yourself right into a blown-out trading account. You don’t want that and I don’t want that for you. So, in today’s lesson, I am going to give you some solid insight and suggestions that if you follow consistently will help you make 2015 your best trading year yet…

Get S#@! Done!

Let’s be honest, we are all guilty of being lazy sometimes, and some of us have more work to do in this area than others. But, if you’re someone who has been a procrastinator in 2014, it’s certainly not going to help your 2015 trading performance if you continue on that path. Allow me to elaborate…

You know that nagging feeling when you should be doing something but instead you’re watching T.V. or otherwise avoiding your responsibilities? That feeling is not conducive to the proper trading mindset, nor the proper mindset for anything really.

Many people procrastinate on many different things, but certainly exercising is a big one that a lot of people can relate to. I am personally guilty of procrastinating on exercising and it’s something I am making an effort to change this year. The studies on the benefits of exercise all point to improved cognitive functioning and bodily functioning, as well as an overall improved state of well-being and health. If you really want to put the odds of trading success in your favour in 2015, you (and I) need to get on the ball and make exercise a priority, not something that we “will do later”.

If exercise procrastination wasn’t your problem in 2014, then apply this mentality of “Getting S%@! Done” elsewhere, because there’s nothing worse than carrying around a head full of things you ‘should be doing’ but you aren’t. Get your priorities and responsibilities done first, then your mind will be clear and calm for trading or any other activity you choose. Remember this by thinking “You’ve got to earn your party”, or “Business first, party later”.

Shift your focus from the ‘destination’ to the ‘journey’ of trading…

If I had to describe the inherent problem most traders face in trading, I would say it’s that since it is possible to make ‘fast money’ in the market, most traders focus way too much on that and way too little on the process of trading. It’s an ironic fact that you will never make money trading until you stop thinking so much about making money. The people who make consistent money in the market are people who love trading and who are good traders. They could trade well on a $500 account or a $50,000 account, for them it doesn’t matter what size the account is because they understand that trading success is all about the journey, not the destination.

In other words, instead of focusing on the destination of ‘making money’, you should be focusing on the journey of trading properly. That means good entries, ‘feeling’ the market and getting in tune with it. It also means proper and consistent risk management and working on your trade exits. A funny thing happens when you focus on these things and forget about ‘making money’, that is, you actually start making money and stop losing it!

I find that traders often get so engrossed in the dreams of quitting their jobs and ‘fast money’, that they don’t properly focus on how to trade nor do they put in the time and effort to develop proper trading skills. No amount of hoping, wishing or dreaming can substitute for learning how to trade properly.

Get organized.

This tip is both a ‘trading tip’ as well as a lifestyle tip. If you’ve been trying to trade out of a cluttered office or in the corner of your messy bedroom, you need to change that. It’s a fact that our environment and surroundings influence our mindset and thought processes, and those things obviously directly influence our trading.

You need to be well-organized to have a clear and calm trading mindset, and a clear and calm mindset is crucial to successful trading. I just finished cleaning up my office, getting rid of old papers / receipts I didn’t need and simplifying my trading environment. I have found that a clean trading room often influences my mindset to become ‘cleaner’ and more focused. I think if you follow this advice you’ll find the same is true for you and as a result you’ll see the market more clearly and stay more focused and disciplined.

The Key is consistency…

The key or ‘glue’ with all of the above points, is that you have to be consistent in staying on top of them all year. Don’t think of them so much as ‘new year’s resolutions’, but instead think of them as lifestyle and mindset changes. You’re trying to develop new habits in your life and in your mind, because doing so is truly the key to successful trading. Essentially, you have to become a better version of yourself if you want to become a consistently profitable trader. That means you need to become more patient, more disciplined, more organized and more focused on the proper things. If you can do this month in and month out over the course of this New Year, I can almost guarantee you that 2015 will be your best trading year yet.

If you’ve been following my site for a while you know the basics of my trading approach. It’s a relatively simple price action based approach that focuses on key levels in the market and trading trends from value. If you’re a member of my price action trading community and have taken my trading course, you know my method inside and out and all the details on how I trade. However, knowing something isn’t everything, you’ve got to implement it and stay true to it, and that’s where many people get lost. So as you start the 2015 trading year, remember that consistency in all areas of life and trading is key!

Here’s to Good Trading in this New Year – Nial Fuller