1) Do I treat my trading/investing like a business? Have I prepared for it the way I would for any other business?
2) Do I have a business plan – a working document to guide my trading business?
3) Do I have a set of written rules to follow?
4) Am I following a regular procedure to prevent mistakes? A mistake means not following your rules that you have laid out for yourself.
5) Do I have a tested trading methodology?
6) Do I know how my methodology will perform in different kinds of markets?
7) Do I know what kind of market we are currently in now and what to expect from my methods in such a market? Should I be trading these markets?
8) Do I trade with exact exit points that are preplanned for every trade (position) I take?
9) Have I developed specific objectives for my trading/investing?
10) Do I understand that I achieve my objectives through a POSITION SIZING METHOD? Have I developed a specific position sizing method to meet my objectives?
11) Do I truly understand the importance of all the questions mentioned above?
12) Do I understand that I create my own trading/investment results through my thoughts and beliefs?
13) Do I accept full responsibility for that creation?
14) Do I regularly work on myself to make sure that I follow the very important points (questions) above?
Please circle all the responses above that are TRUE for you right now. If you haven’t circled at least 10 of the 14, you are NOT taking your trading/investing seriously. You could be doing yourself some harm if you continue with your trading unless you starting working on the points above.
Here is what you need to do: Do NOT accept the notion that you are just an average trader/investor and there is nothing you can do about it. Please remember, you create your own results, and your results right now (not forever) come from playing a serious game with absolutely no training. And if you’ve had training you simply need more of it so you can honestly answer more true to the questions above.