Persistence and Perseverance Are Crucial to Trading Successfully

The definition of persistence is basically, never giving up. Perseverance is, going on despite hardships, opposition and setbacks. Some people do not allow obstacles, set-backs, opposition or hardships get in their way when they want something bad enough. Don Jackson is a black man who was dyslexic in the late forties and early fifties at a time when most professionals didn’t even know how to spell the term, much less what it was. He grew up labelled as retarded in special school systems. But, Don knew inside that he was not retarded. He had a light emanating from his Spirit into which he plugged his heart and decided that he too wanted to learn like everyone else. When he decided to go to college everyone who knew him or read his school history tried to discourage him, most of the time thinking that they were saving him from major disappointments and pain. But Don never gave up. Even though it was very difficult for him to read because of his disability, he did so and remembered it well. He passed his remedial studies and was admitted into college; whereupon, he not only graduated, but today is a Ph.D. in education and works with young people whom society has given up on. He had persistence and perseverance; he would not allow anything to keep him from his burning goal. He never lost sight of his vision. He created solutions to his problems. Through his vision he maintained his commitment, held on to patience and understood the value of never giving up. There are 5 critical steps to attaining and maintaining strong levels of persistence and perseverance:

First, rekindling and refueling the vision of your purpose everyday charges the emotion that sustains you. It reminds you daily of the rewards and benefits of the goal. If you haven’t identified your purpose for trading you’ll want to take care of this right away. Your purpose is the starting point for successful trading. It is where you connect the “what-matters-most” of your life to the “what-matters-most” in the trade. It is how you infuse a passion for remaining on task to the process of your trading. The vision is what galvanizes your strength and drives you, like a turbo jet, towards your trading goals.

Secondly, the journey of 1000 miles begins with one step. You must firmly anchor the attitude by using this heartfelt statement as your own; “I can achieve anything I set my heart and mind to; nothing is impossible for me to achieve if I want it badly enough for I am willing to pay the price no matter how much work is involved, or how long it takes, or how difficult it is I can and will achieve.” This belief in self is imperative to remaining focused.

Thirdly, remember to view setbacks, losses and failures as learning opportunities – those things that hurt, instruct. All great achievers have made innumerable mistakes and have failed, that is what provided the “experience” and the “education.” This is necessary to manifest your trading vision.

Fourthly, always increase your market knowledge by identifying the mechanics that will help you to form a foundation in the markets that you have chosen to trade. This can also be termed “a results orientation.” Experiment with different approaches, perspectives and paths.

Fifthly, transform your work into fun. Make what you have to do, into something that you want to do. Working toward your life goal shouldn’t feel like a sacrifice because it is what you want more than anything for you and your family. As you gain more “process mastery” in your trading you will increase the “joy” of doing it as well.

Now, let’s look at five ways to deal with setbacks:

1. Don’t aim to avoid a handicap, such as starting your trading business without capital or wanting to understand a new market despite time constraints. If you have a challenge, study it from all angles and seek to identify a creative solution; otherwise a tiny toy wrench can grow into a huge iron monkey wrench stopping your progress cold.

2. Don’t blame others for your problems. Successful trading requires personal accountability and self-limits. Be honest with yourself. Use your mentors and, as well you can, be your own mentor by pretending that someone has come to you for advice on that very trading issue. How would you answer them?

3. Continue to strive and strengthen your qualities of self-discipline. You will not make it as a trader if you can’t keep your commitments. Setbacks that are caused by commitment implosion often can cause weaknesses in special areas, turn the weakness into strength. Be your own heaviest critic but don’t beat yourself up – in other words, you are not a failure, you had a learning experience.

4. Every setback or loss has a silver lining or seed of opportunity. Find it and use it. It may involve a new strategy, but you are getting there anyway.

5. Take the attitude that every issue has a solution. A problem is only a problem if you think you can’t, and therefore you won’t, solve it. As Henry Ford once said, “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, either way you’re right.”

The items above are some of the ways to strengthen your persistence and perseverance. In order to achieve anything that is important and valuable it takes time, energy and dogged determination. Keep in mind that the drive to persist and persevere is fueled by the initial vision. The closer you get to process mastery, the stronger the belief and clearer the vision – the more real it becomes. As you continue to achieve, the vision fuels the goal of process mastery and the goal of process mastery fuels the vision. With each victory you are developing more capacity. Perseverance, like training for a marathon, is consistently building endurance and strength to go to the next level. Between the vision and the goal, persistence and perseverance act like a nuclear reactor and put into motion a self-perpetuating spiral of vision, belief, emotion and reality. This self-perpetuating spiral will change your trading and your life from the inside out. Trading success is where opportunity meets preparation. This is what we teach in “Mastering the Mental Game” Online and On-location course. Ask your Online Trading Academy representative for more information. And, get my book “From Pain to Profit: Secrets of the Peak Performance Trader.”

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