Think Like A Trader Blog

Thursday 10 January 2019

Stick to Your Grind in 2019!



Hello Traders.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year.

We are on the 10th of January already. And I know that so many of you entered this year with the best of intentions. You pumped yourself up and you determined that THIS year was going to be different. Your goals wouldn't be things you planned out in December and then abandoned as soon as you hit a few roadblocks.

Well, this year can be that year. It can the the 365 days where you pull yourself toward whatever it is you want to achieve. But it isn't going to be easy. It never is.

I don't care if you want to learn how to crochet. If you are determined to start a new business. If you are desperate to learn how to trade. Whatever it may be, 365 days is a LONG time to stick to something and continue to put in your grind day after day after day.

What normally happens? We smash into January and we power through the first couple of weeks. Then we get into the latter half of the month. February starts to rear its head. You're busy and you're tired and you are finding out that working toward your goal is a lot more work than you expected. It's so much more difficult than you could have imagined.

And what comes next? You take your goal and you slide it under your bed. You shove it back far enough that no light can get to it. You leave it there to gather dust, until it is coated so thickly that you can't even see it any more. You forget about it, forcing yourself to do it.

But it doesn't ever really die, does it? If you are honest with yourself. It's always there, a gentle whisper in your head. You still want to do it, you just don't know if you CAN. Because it isn't easy. So, it's better to decide that you can't be bothered, rather than finding out for sure that you just weren't able to do it.

2019 doesn't have to be like that, though. This can be your year. It can be the time when you don't shove your goals aside and instead continue on in your routine as if you're trapped in some hideous version of Groundhog Day. You just have to make sure, absolutely certain, that you keep making progress, day after day, even when all you want to do is curl up and forget about the whole thing.

How do you do it?

You start by making a deal with yourself. Right now. You tell yourself that this year is different. You tell yourself that no matter how hard it gets, you are going to continue on until at least the end of the year. And if you get there and you still want to give up, well then that's just fine. But you'll get there exhausted and knowing that you gave it your all.

And do you know what will happen when you get there? Most likely you won't want to give up at all. Because you'll sit back and you'll say to yourself 'look how far I've come!' And you'll learn something else - it was only difficult when you stopped to allow yourself to think about it. The rest of the time you were too busy to let it bother you at all.

Make the deal with yourself. Superglue the goal to yourself by going one step further. Speak to someone close to you - Mum, Dad, sibling, brother, sister, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever it may be. Tell them what you intend to do and here's the important part: ask them to ask you for regular progress updates. Once per week. And whever you feel like quitting, ask them to tell you that you promised yourself that this year would be different.

Get to the end of the year and just don't feel like carrying on? Fine. But at least you'll know that you did it, that you stuck to your grind and you proved to yourself that you can keep going when everyone around you is shoving their goal back under the bed for another year.

I hope you are all having a great trading week!

James Orr