I was inspired to write this post after talking to a coaching client yesterday. As is often the case, Jeff had a very nice 2 week run in his trading  (he says it was his best 2 weeks ever) right after we began coaching. But yesterday Jeff told me since our last talk he had really veered from what I had asked him to do  – keeping track of and analyzing his internal state while trading.  In his own words, “It’s so clear to me, when I do what you told me it really works and it shows up in my P&L, when I don’t do the work, I really pay for it”.

I see this all the time, as a coach and in my own trading. The most effective goal for a trader, is not money.  Shocking, I know.  I’m sure some of you are shaking your head no on this one. And I’m not even going to go into why having a dollars (or ticks or points or whatever) per day goal is bad, those of you who know me already know why I don’t like that. 

Being motivated by money is not enough, motivation to work on oneself is the necessary fuel needed to push us through the tough patches and to pull us forward into new territory.

A nice example is the fact that your P&L is an expression of how well you control your actions, not how well you analyze charts. There are many ‘traders’ (like Jeff) who are great at analyzing charts and understanding markets,  but can’t control their actions in the heat of the moment. Imagine what would happen if such a trader decided to really put the focus on the actual problem in their trading – making it a goal to learn to control their actions. Could this be you?

As long as Jeff does ‘the work’, I expect he’ll be fine.

If you are interested in accelerating your development as a trader, consider my Advanced Course, designed to address the problems that all traders face. It is ‘heavy duty’ trading psychology with a lot of actionable steps to improve your performance. It’s for  traders who are serious about improving. And if you haven’t already, sign up for my free email newsletter that gives you professional trading psychology tips.