Set And Achieve Trading Goals Easily (Powerful Goal-Setting Technique!)
August 31st, 2017: In this Saint-Lambert Forex trading vlog, I discuss a principle of goal setting for traders. I show how I have been starting to apply the 12-week year principle into my life. It applies as much to help you achieve trading goals as it does with other life, business, etc. goals. Vlog #177.
Recommended Book: 12-Week Year by Brian P. Moran & Michael Lennington (affiliate link)
I've also discussed this book in 3 Things I Need To Get Done For Success During My Next Trip.
Subscribe on Youtube to receive my daily video!
Video Transcript
How To Achieve Trading Goals The Easy Way?
What's up guys, welcome back! Another beautiful day today. It's a little bit cloudy, but I've been backtesting these past couples of days…it's been really tiring. Some strategies give the same thing that I already trade, which means I'm not gonna modify something just for fun. But, I'm doing some more work on that topic.
Now, let's go do some work, here around. Find a coffee shop and try to do something productive.
It's been quite productive and there is this concept that I've been starting to work with called the 12-week year. It's something I think can help you achieve trading goals. I wanna talk about that today and dive into it a little bit more…
You Might Be Wrong About Trying To Achieve Trading Goals…
You see, the way most people see their goals is: they sit down at the beginning of the year and they think about what they want to accomplish, the big goals they have for next year.
Someone might think: “Well, I want to become a profitable trader. That's my goal for the next year”. And then, they kind of write this down. Kind of think about it a little bit. That's like their goal.
And then, the only thing they think about is hard work. They're going to have to work hard to reach that goal of becoming a successful trader.
Now, you kind of know what's gonna happen with this story, right? People are gonna leave their goal away or they're going to be distracted by something else. Or, the other thing that might happen is that they might not know what to do. They just do the wrong task all the time until they see no results and get frustrated. That happens a lot.
How I Go About Achieving My Goals
Instead of saying this, I prefer this kind of different way of setting goals, which is: yes, you can have like big outcomes that you see for the future but you also need this kind of smaller (kind of) action steps along the way. And the book I came across is called the 12-Week Year (affiliate link). And it's showing you how you can get as much done in 12 weeks as in a full year, which is pretty insane.
How The 12-Week Year Works To Help You Achieve Your Goals
The way the process works is that you set some goals at the beginning of the year, for example. The big things you want to accomplish by the end of that year. And then you break it down into different parts, so every single part has 12 weeks. And those different 12-week periods have different goals (kind of smaller goals).
Within those goals, you need to put in actions, things that you do on a daily basis. Because you probably heard before that the success you see is based on your habits and what you do daily. And that's exactly what we talk about. So I like to establish some goals and some things that I track. The problem when I first started with this
Because you probably heard before that the success you see is based on your habits and what you do daily. And that's exactly what we talk about. So I like to establish some goals and some things that I track. The problem when I first started with this
The problem when I first started with this is: I had some actions that I wanted to do, but I didn't really track how I was doing them, which is making it harder. Today I was creating this spreadsheet of all the tasks I need to get done and how much I get done (like percentages I reach every month or every 12 months).
Once you have these 12-week periods broken down into smaller goals, then you can go to the weekly. What are the things you need to do weekly to get to those goals?
Let's say your goal for 2017 was to become a profitable trader. You want to achieve trading goals in the Forex market (you want to become profitable). So you're gonna have different parts, of course. And, we won't look at all of it, for now. We'll just look at the first 12 weeks.
Action Steps: Achieve Trading Goals The Easy Way
So, let's say we were January 1st…what are the things you need to do like right now to see the most progress toward your goal (become profitable)? And the first thing might be to research something online. You might give yourself like 2 weeks to do that. The other one might be to backtest something. You might give yourself 4 weeks cause it takes a long time sometimes…whatever.
And then, once you backtested that, the next step is gonna be create your plan, test something, learn about money management.
You might give yourself 2 weeks for each of them. And that's gonna conclude pretty much your 12 weeks I believe. It'll definitely help you (in the future) to achieve trading goals you set. But you need to identify those in advance. And every 12-week period should have a clear outcome (a clear thing you want to reach).
The Point Isn't Only To Achieve Trading Goals…
We don't really care here whether you reach the 12-week outcome that you set. It doesn't really matter. What really matters is if you execute properly on your plan. Because not reaching your 12-week goal might be based on 2 things:
- You didn't execute the actions you were supposed to execute in your 12-week plan.
- Your plan is not effective.
Now, those are really different things and you're gonna tackle them differently. If your plan is not effective is not effective for the first 12 weeks, guess what? You still have 3 more 12 weeks in the year to do things differently. Hence
Hence why you have a lot of possibilities to improve. And that's always the goal. I believe in a growth mindset and I believe that you get better over time by the things you change and how you execute on things. And that's all there is to it.
Then, of course, you want to review every month to sure you're on track on your progress and to kind of figure out what things you didn't do as you were supposed to do and how you can correct them for the next month. That's very important!
And that was the thing I've been doing today: the monthly review. Cause it's been 4 weeks now in my 12 week period. And, I'm kind of not happy about the progress I've made. I kind of skipped some parts. I did the 12 weeks before I left for my trip, then I (kind of) stopped for summer and then I'm (kind of) back to it.
It's always a process of improvement and I have something I know I'll have to improve, but I just want to share this with you guys cause I believe it's really really effective and really useful when you want to reach your goals.
It's Time To Take Action!
So, figure out what is the goal you want to reach. If you want to get on this 12-week journey with me, I'd love to keep you updated on it and do my best to help you out.
And if you have any questions about like what goals you want to reach or how to reach them, I'll do my best to help you out. Today, I've been talking a lot about goals. I hope you guys enjoy this (kind of) topic.
I hope this is valuable to you. If so, please give a like to the video, I'd really appreciate. I do my best to bring you the most value and things that people don't talk about sometimes.
I didn't see that many people talk about how to achieve trading goals, hence why I wanted to do this video and make sure you guys have something to keep going and some things you keep progressing toward.
As I've heard once, a goal without a plan is like a dream and you don't want to have that. So thanks for watching guys, I appreciate.
