What You Need To Know When Setting Your Trading And Investing Goals
Goal setting in trading and investing, and indeed in any area of your life, has two vital items involved in goal setting and goal attainment: i) perceived difficulty of the goal; and ii) how specific your goal is.
The more perceived difficulty in the goal and more specific the goal is, the more likely you will raise your level of performance to achieve your goal. This is because with these two elements of challenge and focus, people are more likely to try harder, achieving a higher performance which produces better overall results.
In a trading example a goal to earn $50,000 next year through your trading activity is good. However, a goal to achieve, say $51,600 will likely produce better performance as it is perceived by your brain as more specific.
Setting easy goals is unlikely to raise your performance as if you set a difficult but specific goal. So if you believed that a trading goal to earn $51,600 is easily attainable for the year, and then maybe set it to a more challenging $72,400.
But your goal has to be realistic to be achievable. You need to believe your goal is attainable through your past experience, knowledge, training and/or skills that you can make it happen. So to perform against your goal make it realistic.
So that is the setting of your trading goal. What about along the way...on the journey to achieving the goal? You will be most committed to achieving a goal when you believe that achieving the goal is important. Also when you can see that progress is being made towards achieving the goal, you get the best results.
You can measure your progress against your trading/investing goal simply by keeping a running tally of your earnings year to date. So when you are half way through the year and have an earning tally of $38,100 from your goal of $72,400 you know you are on track as you are over half way there.
Often when we start off in trading/investing we do not set goals. Often we're just happy to see ourselves make some money. This unfortunately is not specific or difficult - it is not going to challenge or focus your performance.
Start by setting a difficult, specific, and realistic trading/investing goal and start measuring your progress. But make sure you understand why you want to achieve your goal; you need to know why it is important for you to achieve your goal.
In his excellent text book "The Psychology of Persuasion", Kevin Hogan talks about "the least acceptable result". What is your LEAST ACCEPTABLE RESULT from your trading? Think about this very carefully because this is the true goal that most people WILL achieve from any activity. You must move your Least Acceptable Result up to the level of your goal. - 23167
The more perceived difficulty in the goal and more specific the goal is, the more likely you will raise your level of performance to achieve your goal. This is because with these two elements of challenge and focus, people are more likely to try harder, achieving a higher performance which produces better overall results.
In a trading example a goal to earn $50,000 next year through your trading activity is good. However, a goal to achieve, say $51,600 will likely produce better performance as it is perceived by your brain as more specific.
Setting easy goals is unlikely to raise your performance as if you set a difficult but specific goal. So if you believed that a trading goal to earn $51,600 is easily attainable for the year, and then maybe set it to a more challenging $72,400.
But your goal has to be realistic to be achievable. You need to believe your goal is attainable through your past experience, knowledge, training and/or skills that you can make it happen. So to perform against your goal make it realistic.
So that is the setting of your trading goal. What about along the way...on the journey to achieving the goal? You will be most committed to achieving a goal when you believe that achieving the goal is important. Also when you can see that progress is being made towards achieving the goal, you get the best results.
You can measure your progress against your trading/investing goal simply by keeping a running tally of your earnings year to date. So when you are half way through the year and have an earning tally of $38,100 from your goal of $72,400 you know you are on track as you are over half way there.
Often when we start off in trading/investing we do not set goals. Often we're just happy to see ourselves make some money. This unfortunately is not specific or difficult - it is not going to challenge or focus your performance.
Start by setting a difficult, specific, and realistic trading/investing goal and start measuring your progress. But make sure you understand why you want to achieve your goal; you need to know why it is important for you to achieve your goal.
In his excellent text book "The Psychology of Persuasion", Kevin Hogan talks about "the least acceptable result". What is your LEAST ACCEPTABLE RESULT from your trading? Think about this very carefully because this is the true goal that most people WILL achieve from any activity. You must move your Least Acceptable Result up to the level of your goal. - 23167
About the Author:
Want to find out more about share trading education then visit Just Shares' site on how to trade shares successfully with Just Shares Share Trading Course.
posted by X - Men @ 6:08 AM
0 Comments
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home