Set Yourself Goals and Targets

Reading Time - 5 Minutes

Well, day one into my trading holiday over the Christmas period. I must admit, I took an early morning trade today, so the holiday isn’t going as planned. The market set up too nicely to ignore. That’s my excuse, anyway. I was waiting for an injection of capital due to the huge recent sell off and opening above a key level. It came at the 8am open. 

We’re coming into Christmas and New Year, which is a ripe time for people to make their resolutions and determine to achieve certain goals in 2016. There’s also a trend of ‘resolution bashing’, as I’m sure you’ve seen spread all over social media. The memes go something like – ‘It’s almost time for that New Year, new me bullsh++’. And yes, it’s true that lots of people set themselves goals as they enter into a new year, only to let them fall away within the first few weeks of January.

However I’m a big supporter of setting yourself goals and targets. I set myself new targets throughout the year as and when needed, but I also love New Year as a way to set the big ones. You know, the ones that seem so crazy that there’s a part of you that doesn’t really believe it possible. But I can assure you, if you put in the work, you’ll be amazed at what a year can deliver. That’s the key though – you need to put in the work in order to achieve the goals you set. Clearly if you give up in January you’ll be more than happy to believe the ‘New Year new me bullsh++’ club.

I’ll go over my last couple of years as a way to show you that things can go a lot better than you expected if you stick to your goals and put the work in:

So a quick bit of background for the 2014 goal. I love writing, mainly fiction in the horror genre. I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, crafting stories on my laptop just for the fun of it. In 2014 I set myself two goals to do with writing. The first was to get a short story published with a literary magazine. The second was to finish the first draft of a novel.

Now, I didn’t actually believe I would get anything published. From research I already knew that every literary magazine and online publication receives hundreds of subscriptions per week, all from aspiring writers. But that was my target and so all I did was come up with a plan of writing/editing 2,000 words per day and then submitting the work I had.

Skip forward, through all the hard work, and in 2014 I had two short stories accepted. I have a printed magazine with one of my short stories in it! I also got published on a literary website with another of the stories. On top of that I somehow pushed out the first draft of a novel.

So, great year, right? And it started with a simple New Year resolution that was followed through with the work needed to achieve it.

Below is a link to the online issue of HelloHorror that printed one of my short stories (should you wish to read it). I can’t link to the other one as it was in printed form and the issue is no longer available. My story is ‘Meeting Dad’.

http://www.hellohorror.com/TableofContents12.htm

In 2015 I decided to start a YouTube channel in order to help people learn how to trade. I wanted to do this because of my experience whilst learning. I was overwhelmed with useless information when I first began to learn how to trade so I wanted to provide somewhere that people interested in trading could get useful, reliable information. I decided that I would make one video per week, and if I could get 200 subscribers in the year I would be delighted.

I should note at this point that I had no idea how to create a YouTube video, how to edit, how to record my computer screen… so I was starting at a severe disadvantage!

But I carried on with my plan and now we’re in December the YouTube page has almost 2,500 subscribers!

That’s some ‘New Year new me bullsh++’, right?

So what’s the point of this post? Well hopefully to encourage you! I know what it feels like when you want to do something new and achieve a goal that lurks in your head but you’re too timid and doubtful in your abilities to even voice the goal to any of your family or friends. But you can do it. You can achieve more than you think is possible in your current state.

I’m presuming your goal has something to do with trading – it makes more sense than you simply being on this blog to read my ramblings with no real interest in trading at all. So set yourself a goal and figure out what you’re going to do to achieve it. Do you want to get to a stage where you’re able to maintain an account? Do you want to be profitable overall in 2016? Do you want to design your own trading plan?

Whatever it is, just decide to do it. Say to yourself, ‘this is what I want from 2016 and I’m determined to do everything in my power to achieve it.’ And then here’s the crucial part… do it! Don’t give up on January the 21^st, or February the 21^st, or March 21^st! Keep pushing all year and then look back as you prepare for 2017 and see just how far you’ve come.

I hope you all have a great trading week!