Hard work and persistence in trading, just like with any other worthwhile endeavor, is often required for success. In this post I draw from a quote of the late William J. O’Neil to elaborate.
William J. O’Neil:
The late William O’Neil was an entrepreneur, stockbroker and a writer. He created the famous CANSLIM strategy for trading / investing and is the author of the book How to Make Money in Stocks (where he writes about CANSLIM in detail).
Quoting from How to Make Money in Stocks:
The following quote is from the late William J. O’Neil’s great book: How to Make Money in Stocks:
“For me, many long evenings of study led to precise rules, disciplines, and a plan that finally worked. Luck had nothing to do with it; it was persistence and hard work. You can’t expect to watch television, drink beer, or party with your friends every night and still find the answers to something as complicated as the stock market or the U.S. economy.”
Hard Work and Persistence:
You will often hear successful people saying that hard work and persistence was key in them becoming successful. As I said at the start of this post, it’s no different with trading. For me, trading is right up there with professional sports and the highest level of entrepreneurship.
There are many things / issues traders have to deal with. Some of them are:
- balancing work with your trading (if you’re not already working at a trading firm).
- people not believing in your trading.
- developing a trading strategy that fits you and your lifestyle.
- sticking to your trading strategy.
- bouncing back from a big loss / blowing an account.
- dealing with all the outside noise.
- dealing with all the uncertainty of the markets.
- dealing with losing streaks (there will be losing streaks) and winning streaks, for that matter (keeping your ego in check).
- comparing yourself to others.
- self doubt.
- developing a mindset that losses are a part of trading.
There are many many more. And all will be reasons for you to consider giving up. But if make the decision upfront that you won’t quit, that you will persist, your chances of success increase dramatically.
You will make mistakes along the way, but you will eliminate them as they come up, one by one, getting better all the time. Persistence goes hand in hand with thinking long term.
But don’t think that just because you decided that you are never going to give up, a little procrastination here and there is okay. This is where hard work is coming in.
Do what you planned to do. Have your daily and weekly routines and stick to them. Always keep learning, keep working on yourself and find ways that you can improve.
All of this doesn’t mean that you won’t ever have a social life again, that’s not really why we start trading, but do realize that some sacrifices will have to be made and success rarely comes overnight.
Finally:
The great thing about trading is that you don’t require many resources to start, and although it might not be easy, it most certainly is possible to become successful.
All the resources is out there, for free, to study up on and make use of. It’s up to you to look for those solutions and apply them. Remember, what you put in, is what you can expect to get out.