It’s the start of a brand new year, and you know what that means – it’s time to come up with a fresh batch of forex trading resolutions!
As traders, this is a good time to sit back and reflect on the year that was. Go through your trading journal and look at each and every one of your trades.
What? You don’t keep a trading journal? Shame on you! At least you have one new resolution for this year!
Going through this process is an excellent way to find inspiration for setting your resolutions and goals for the new year.
As you go through your journal, here are some questions you can ask yourself:
- What did I do well? What didn’t I do well?
- What worked for me? What didn’t?
- How well did I do in gauging market sentiment?
- Did I follow my trading rules? Do I need to explore other methods?
- What else do I need to improve in my framework to perform better?
List down the things that you need to work on. Be brutally honest with yourself – that’s how you’ll come up with the best resolutions.
If you still need help coming up with some resolutions, here are some simple but effective examples that you might find applicable to your own trading:
- I will set a daily / weekly / monthly loss limits for my trading account.
- I will stay focused and trade the entire London session from beginning to end.
- I will dedicate two hours on Sunday night to prepare my charts and read up on economic reports that will be released in the upcoming week.
- I will be more aggressive and press my winners.
- I will roll my stop higher on swing positions to protect my profits.
- I will not put off writing and updating my trading journal on a daily basis.
- I will not not make any of these newbie mistakes.
Of course your list of resolutions will be just a list of meaningless words unless you actually act on fulfilling your goals. That means you need to establish methods to help you achieve your objectives.
You have to follow up and follow through!
One thing you can do to help you accomplish your goals is to re-evaluate yourself on a more regular basis. You don’t have to wait until the end of the year to review your progress!
Take a moment every week, month, or quarter to reassess your progress and get back on track.
Have you been sticking to your resolutions? Which of your resolutions are you having difficulty with and how can you improve on them?
It would also help if you had an accountability buddy or a trading mentor to help you follow through. They can nag you, bug you, and give you an objective assessment of your progress. I highly advise this for those of you who have difficulty sticking to resolutions.
I hope these tips can guide you in making trading resolutions that are effective in improving your performance. Keep in mind that it’s never too early to think of what you want to do differently.
That said, why don’t you share your top trading resolutions below? Who knows, you may be able to borrow a few ideas from your fellow traders!