By Sherrie Nish
Last week, Marilyn suggested (gave as homework) getting a binder and two sets of dividers: one five-cut and one-cut. Those dividers can also be referred to as five-tab and eight-tab. In addition, she recommended acquiring a bound, undated journal available on Amazon. Her reasoning is that if the journal is right in front of you, it is easier to stay disciplined and as traders, we need that focus and discipline.
As an overview, Marilyn explained the purpose of the different tabs and setting up the binder. The first five are for the main categories with the other eight being used for years. Let’s set up the five main categories first. They are as follows:
-
Perfect Life (Previously life plan.)
-
Financial
-
Physical
-
Mental/Emotional
-
Educational
For the Perfect Life section, start with the lifeline page that you made last week. Look at where you are on that lifeline and realize that everything to the left of now is over. It’s done. It’s in the past and you don’t get a re-do. You only get to start where you are and work to the right. With the good nutrition and health care available to us now, we’ll all be trading when we’re 100 and beyond!
Get rid of everything in your head and allow yourself time to think. Start with now and if you could do anything, what would you do? Describe your perfect life. Write it all down descriptively. Don’t worry about how much it all costs or how you will do it. That isn’t important. It will all happen if you write it down.
The more descriptive you can be of your perfect life and how you want it to be in a perfect world, without worry or thought of costs or things that might dissuade you from having your dreams, because those things do not matter, the better it will be. Once your subconscious understands what you really want, it will help you do it without you even being aware of it.
However, your subconscious has no sense of humor and makes no judgement calls. Even if you tell it something negative, it will assume you want it and give it to you. Make sure you are presenting your perfect life with a good attitude. Below is a wonderful description of attitude by Charles Swindoll.
If you prefer, you can watch on YouTube.
Financial will involve two things: your trading as well as keeping the big picture of your family finances.
There will also be two aspects of the Physical tab. This will include the physical trader and the physical work area. The top traders have work areas without distractions. Their trading areas are simply that: Trading areas and nothing else. There is nothing around them to distract them from their computer screens.
Mental/Emotional: Everyone makes mistakes trading. There is so much you can control when trading but not the market. We can control ourselves. This section will help us decipher the things we can control.
The Educational section is where to keep track of the books, videos, future courses, etc. to be studied. Sometimes it can be so overwhelming trying to learn it all that you just shut it off and quit learning. If you have a place to record what you want to learn next, then when the market is slow, you can consult your binder and find something you want to learn instead of sitting there watching paint dry!
For the eight tabs, start with 2018 and follow with the next years, up through 2025. What do you want to do in 2018? Perhaps your goal is to make $50,000. Is this a realistic goal for you? Do you understand trading? Are you consistently profitable?
Make sure your goal is realistic for where you are with your trading. You are the only one who can answer that question. Break it down. If $50,000 is doable, then by June 30, you need to have made $25,000. By March 31, you need to have $12,500 in profit. Each month, you need to make $4200; each week, $1050 and every day needs to bring in $210. Are you within that risk to reward window for your trading account without risking over five percent as Darrell suggests?
If trading NQ, on average, it takes 42 ticks a day 5 days a week in order to make 50K a year. Is that realistic?
Another question to ask yourself is what will keep me from doing this goal? It could be sickness or a family vacation. Factor all of this into your plan. You have to evaluate all of this so that when you get to the trading journal book, you will have a realistic expectation of what you are doing every day.
These things will get your business plan book set up. Next week, we’ll get the journal set up.
Links to last week’s articles: Marilyn’s Business and Life Plan- Step 1: Figuring Out What You Really Want The Importance Of Including Details In Your Life Plan