Learn to Trade for Personal and Financial Growth

Over my many years trading the markets I’ve been constantly surprised at just how crucial constant personal growth is to trading success. To be truly successful in the markets on a consistent basis, a trader needs to be in full control of their emotions and always be looking for ways to improve their mental discipline.

Trading is a constant battle with fear, greed, and our own ego in an environment with few rules to govern our actions (except those we make for ourselves). This is why even the most successful people often struggle as traders – there is just too much personal freedom and opportunities for breakdowns in our discipline. These same difficulties in the trading process are also a huge opportunity for personal growth . If you want to learn how to master you actions and improve your mental discipline, I can think of no better way than to learn to trade.

I’ll admit, when I first got started on my journey towards becoming a day trader it was mostly about the money. I had big dreams of making millions but more than that, I dreamed of financial freedom . I wanted to be able to work when and if I wanted to and from anywhere in the world. While these goals were certainly admirable and exciting, what I didn’t realize at the time was that I was on the wrong path to reaching them.

In the initial stage of my day trading career I struggled with consistency. I was completely focused on the money and every day my sense of self-worth was largely defined by my equity curve. If it was going up, I was on a fantastic high and nothing could stop me. If I had a badly losing day I was instantly questioning myself and my decision to try and make it as a day trader.

As you might imagine, this roller-coaster of emotion was far from sustainable and did nothing to improve my results over the long term. I was still determined to break through my trading plateau, but I was starting to realize that just focusing on the money made or lost wasn’t going to do it. It didn’t seem to matter how many extra hours I spent staring at charts or reading trading books either – I just wasn’t seeing any real progression in my abilities.

Finally I decided that it was time for a change. I took a step back and really assessed my performance and what my mental sticking points might be. This was a real “light bulb” moment for me as I quickly realized that my plateau wasn’t about the trades or the charts, it was about ME! I was struggling because I was focused on all the wrong things and developing in areas that were giving me minimal return. I needed to focus on myself, the way I thought about risk, and my own emotions if I really wanted to take that next step towards being a successful trader.

I then made the major change that allowed me to not just break my trading plateau, but to completely crush it. I started to take the study time I had previously put into charts and trade ideas and I began to put it into methods that could develop the way I thought about the markets. I focused on sports psychology (hugely applicable to the competitive world of trading), meditation , and thought journals instead of the more technical aspects of the market. I began to review my daily results in terms of emotions and mental stability instead of my profit or loss statement. Within weeks, my confidence as a trader and my equity curve were growing substantially.

What I soon found was that not only was my trading improving from my newfound personal growth approach, but all areas of my life were improving as well. I was cultivating mental discipline and emotional control to allow me to succeed in an uncertain environment, but the confidence from that was spreading into my relationships and other business endeavors as well. Building mastery of the self was paying off more than I could have possibly imagined.

Learning to trade over all these years has been the most significant thing I’ve ever done for personal growth. The best part is how quickly day trading reflects my current psychological state. If I am in a good mental zone and managing my emotions, my account goes up. If I am not in full control of my mental state my account goes down. This instant feedback is something that is hard to find in most areas of personal growth, which is why I find my day trading such a useful proxy for my progress.

If you’re looking for a true test of your discipline, focus, and mastery of emotions, you would be hard pressed to find any activity that shows your weaknesses as quickly and clearly as day trading.