We meet again. This week we are going to move right into goal setting. Goal setting is going to be the foundation on which successful trading is built. Let me explain what I mean. If you take any successful coach, let’s say, Bill Belichick, the head coach of the New England Patriots, arguably one of the most successful coaches of all time, his job may be to build a successful football team for the upcoming season but in reality, his job is to set a goal and to achieve it. The ultimate goal is the super bowl championship. Now when training camp starts he lets all his players know that is the goal for the team and that gives them a common direction to focus on. Bill’s job has only begun, he needs to take that direction (super bowl) and turn it into a roadmap of how to get to that ultimate prize. So what’s a coach to do at this point? Well, he needs to take that goal and break it down into smaller goals. For example, at the start of training camp, Bill will set a goal to find a winning quarterback out of all the choices that he has, the first-stringers, second-stringers, etc. After that, the next goal will be a strong offensive line to protect his winning quarterback. That’s goal number two. Do you see where this is going? Next will be the receivers, running back, defense, etc. All these are subgoals of the bigger goal.

I think you can understand that this process is how everything really works in life, not just football or trading. We need to take massive undertakings and break them down into pieces that we can handle. Becoming a successful trader is exactly like this. We need to take the massive world of trading the markets and break it down os that we can take one step at a time and move towards the ultimate goal of being a successful trader or investor. This is exactly what we are going to do. In this blog, we are going to take a rookie from their first step in trading to their first live trade, that is the ultimate goal of this adventure.

First, we need to determine what that ultimate goal is?

What is your ultimate goal in trading? Is it to replace an income? Is it a dollar figure? Is it to be financially free? We need to have that target to shoot for as I wrote about last week. Now there are some things we need to keep in mind when picking that first target. The best description for goal setting I have ever heard is the SMART goal system.

With this in mind, saying you want to make million-dollar trading doesn’t really work under the SMART system.  If we set a goal like, “I want to make one million dollars trading covered calls, starting with 500k in the capital before December 31st, 2027” then that statement has more energy behind it because it is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. Setting goals like this are what can drive you to success, it has more energy and more clarity than just saying I want to make a million dollars when people think like that they are only wishing and dreaming. Wishing and dreaming are ok, but only if you set goals and make plans to achieve those dreams.

So, here’s is the homework,

Create your ideal vision of what your life would be like if you achieved your trading goal. Put some power behind your goal, make a vision board if you want. A vision board is something to stimulate your subconscious mind. You can take a piece of bristol board and put pictures of your success on that board and revisit each day. This will help keep you moving towards that ultimate goal.

Once you have the big goal in mind, we can then begin to build a plan, a series of smaller goals and steps to reach that big goal. We will go through the process of setting learning goals and money goals in tandem to help ensure your success. The reason we have two sets of goals is that we need one set to ensure we become the traders we need to be, these are the learning goals, and we need the money goals to monitor our progress. The money goals are typically everyone’s favorites for obvious reasons but it is the learning goals that actually get us to our ultimate goal.

In next week’s blog, we will break down the goals and then we will get right into all the things we need to learn and do to be a successful trader. We are going to learn how to enter positions, exit positions, read charts, and protect ourselves against disaster and so much more on our way to that all-important first live trade!

Financial freedom is a journey

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