Recently I received this question from Reader Stephen:

I am 53 yo guy been trading for 30+ years.  I love your videos and your traders that give intraday information,

I have a simple question.  What is an example of Goal for the day?

I have enclosed an example of my monthly goals which I do daily to keep me focused. With these plans I have improved my life in so many ways except in my trading.  I improved my health, lost weight, got faster and stronger on the bike, better relationship with my sons, and more organized in the house.  But these things I could break down into daily tasks.  This is where I think I am getting stuck in my trading.  Your idea of daily goals is what I need but I don’t know what that could mean.  I would appreciate any ideas or you can ad them into your Sun discussion.

SMB Responds:

A few of our traders are working on the goal of Controlling their Emotions.  This is a common psychological hurdle for intraday traders, especially active prop traders.  Since we trade actively we are wrong so often.  The human mind is not wired to accept so much rejection.  We must work on overcoming this hurdle.

First we ask our desk to keep notes of all the things that set them off during the trading day.  For three days they gather information on everything that sets them off during a trading session.  This is the first step: observation.

Then we develop a plan for our traders to work on visualization exercises to overcome these deficiencies.  Each thing that sets them off is detached.  A trader visualizes each trading scenario that sets them off, in as much detail as possible.  They get themselves pissed off again.  The trader then expose the logic of being upset, such as this harms my results trading on tilt.  And then they breath until they are calm.

Doing so does a few things: 1) desensitizes the trader to these things that set them off, 2) offers the trader skills so that they can quickly observe their frustration, breathe, and then refocus in a calm state necessary to trade to their potential.

Now this will take a few weeks before any of these traders substantially improve. But they will be improving if they do their visualization exercises daily.  And no matter how gifted, how much you love the markets. and how skilled. you cannot find your trading potential if you are trading on tilt intraday.

This is an example of a goal that an intraday trader on our desk may set.  And this is a road map for achieving that goal.

For those interested in trading psychology I recommend you visit TraderFeed daily, where the godfather of trading psychology Dr. Steenbarger shares his wisdom with all of us daily.

I hope that helps.

Thanks for the question.

Best of luck with your trading!