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If you were to separate foreign currency traders into two groups those who are successful and those who are less than successful would it be possible to pick out the characteristics which differentiate the two groups?
It is not really important what we do in life, and that includes Forex trading, however, no matter what we do, one thing that will have more affect on our success than anything else will be goal setting.
It is a simple fact that the human brain is at its best when it is given a clear roadmap to follow and, when setting yourself a goal, you begin the process of building your roadmap by defining the destination for your journey. However setting a destination is not enough and you will also have to define the route to follow to reach your destination. Here is an example.
Imagine you make up your mind to build a fortune as a Forex trader, and who doesn’t want to after all! This in itself is not however much help as any goal which you set yourself needs to be measurable, otherwise you have no way of knowing whether you have reached it. So, at this point, you have to define precisely what you mean by a ‘fortune’.
Let us say therefore you set yourself a goal of making $1,000,000 in the next twelve months. You now have a clearly defined destination. The next problem however is that, as you are almost certainly new to the world of Forex trading, are still trying to learn the ropes and possibly have limited money to invest at this point, realizing $1,000,000 in the next twelve months is probably not that realistic a goal.
As well as being measurable, goals also have to be realistic. It does not matter what goal you set yourself in Forex trading, but it has to be within your reach. There is little point in deciding that you intend to win Wimbledon if you have never even picked up a tennis racket.
So, instead of aiming for $1,000,000 let us set a more realistic target of say $120,000. Having done this, we then have to break this figure down into marker posts which we can put onto our roadmap and this can be achieved by looking at our target on a monthly rather than an annual basis. This will give us a dozen $10,000 markers. However, if we continue along these lines we can then break our goal down further into weekly markers of $2,500.
Now we have got something which we are able to examine against our current and recent experience and it is a reasonably easy matter to determine whether or not this figure is possible. Is it feasible, against the background of your recent experience, to make $2,500 trading foreign currencies in the next week?
Goals have to be measurable and realistic, but they must also be attainable. It is all very well to set yourself a realistic goal, but you also need to have the right tools, in the right place at the right time if you are going to reach that goal. If you are currently getting $750 a week then you are probably not going to convert this into $2,500 overnight so, in this case, your goal is unattainable and you will have to go back to the beginning and start all over again.
But, if we assume that $2,500 is feasible, then there is one additional step which you need to take before you are ready to head off on your journey. That final step is to paint a picture in your mind’s eye of your destination.
Despite the fact that you have set yourself a goal of making $120,000 in the next twelve months, the money by itself is of course not really what you are aiming for, but it is what you can do with the money which is important. So, having made your $120,000 what are you going to do with it? If you are planning to purchase yourself a new SUV then paint yourself a picture in your mind’s eye of driving off into the sunset with the roof down and now you will truly have a goal.
If you wish to achieve success in Forex trading then you must set yourself a goal which is measurable, realistic and attainable and paint a picture of that goal in your mind’s eye. If you do this you will be amazed at how simple a matter it is to reach your destination.