Welcome to Part V of this five-part series on trading psychology. Do you want to succeed in building a trading business?  I am sure all of you do. If you are, raise your hand. Now, if I were to ask you to raise your hand if you are committed to succeed in building a trading business, I bet fewer hands will be raised. Let me ask you another question. Are you really sure you are committed?  I bet even fewer hands will be raised. Why is that so?

It’s because we are all human beings. It’s human nature to wish to succeed in achieving something. We prefer to succeed. We hope to succeed. But while you wish, hope or prefer to succeed, do you recall why you have completed a task previously? It is because it was a must to you. In other words, you have no choice but to complete the task.

As I am involved in teaching the advanced Optionetics classes, I have this observation: Typically, on the first day of the class, the participants are asked to introduce themselves, and at the same time are asked why they took up trading. Guess what?  Many students said that they took up trading because they want to make more money. Notice they said they “want” to make more money. So, it is their want. However, during the breaks, very often when I am engaged in a deeper conversation with these students, many of them, when asked whether they are committed to trading successfully, will say “umm …” or “well…" or offer a moment of silence. So, you can tell that they are not truly committed. Some of them will say that they are committed. However, if it is intended to be just a lip service, it is not a commitment under my standard. It’s actually very easy to tell whether a person is paying lip service. What I do is to ask them to pay me a hefty sum if they fail to do what they are committed to doing. If they shy away, you know they are only paying lip service.

In my NLP training, we have a participant who is from the insurance industry. During the course, he shared with the entire class that he aims to qualify for the million roundtable in a year’s time. He was so committed that he wrote cheques of $3,000 to his group members, but of course the cheques were not yet signed. He told his group members that if he cannot achieve what he committed himself to, he would sign these cheques in a year’s time. So, what happened in the end?  Yes, in a year’s time, this person achieved what he originally committed himself to and he made it to the million roundtable. He actually put himself on the line and did whatever it took to realize his dream.

So, how about you?  Do you want to succeed?  Maybe you will say “yes.” But the true question is “are you committed?”  This is what makes the difference!

To access previous articles written by Jack Wong, please click here.

Jack Wong 
Staff Writer and Instructor
Optionetics.com ~ Your Options Education Site