Placing high demands on yourself can be overwhelming, especially when you enter into the trading day with chronic goals that you fail to meet. Often placing too much pressure on yourself only leads to disappointment and a lack of enthusiasm. You feel as though you're failing when in fact you are simply in need of some streamlining and goal orientation in order to have more successful trading days.



Streamlining your prepping goals is a fabulous place to start. While the importance of due diligence can never be disputed, working overtime on one single trade eventually becomes counter-productive. Once counter-productive prepping time takes over, the trade is lost or compromised and the trading day is looking like a wash. Stepping out of your comfort zone and dedicating a slot of time to your due diligence can help you move through your decision making process faster and execute more deliberate trades throughout the day.

Stop banking the house, figuratively or literally. Pressure only makes diamonds when you are dealing with coal, not humans. Too much pressure creates dissention. Too much pressure creates an inability to make wise and educated decisions, as emotions start to creep in and carry your decision making process to an unhealthy level. Once you allow emotions into your trading day, your day is once again looking like a wash, and you will lose your perspective.

Time management combined with energy management is part of using your trading day effectively and wisely. When you allow too much time or mental energy to dominate any single trade, you end up wasting at least 50% of the time and energy you have for the remainder of your trading day. Set limits with yourself in order to make faster, more precise decisions. Never let the concern over a trade haunt your day. If you aren't going to execute, move on.

If your due diligence turns up positive responses, execute and move on. Putting too much stock in any one trade creates a pandemonium of sweat and hope mentality, which once again allows the emotional element to take over. Setting realistic limits on yourself and your due diligence is the fastest way to streamline your goals. When you are in control of your decisions and your trading day, then you are also in a place of calm resilience should a trade not work out. More productivity will result from being in control, and more suitable trades are likely to occur since you aren't hanging yourself up on any single trade.

Starting each trading day with a list of hopeful trades is a great way to help streamline your goals and priorities. Unlike many lists, this is one that never needs to be completely accomplished. From you trading day list, select your top five trades and set your limits and run with it. It might take a little adjustment and scheduling in the beginning, but many day traders find that prioritizing as they set limits helps them to get beyond their first five faster than ever. This leaves the door open for additional trades which leads to greater profits in many cases.

While you are prioritizing your trading day, factor in your due diligence time against the trades likelihood of successful execution and successful profit. If you can not devote the time cost against the trade's probability, move it down on the list. If the time cost evens out with the trade's likelihood of success then you have an easily prioritized list. Too much time to given to any one trade equal putting all your eggs in one basket.

Day trading, in part, is about accepting risk, failure, success, and pressure without faltering or becoming emotionally involved. While you may be able to develop the skills you need to become a fast "gut trader" scaling down your expectations to a reasonable degree is part of learning the process and becoming a more informed trader.

This generally leads to a more successful trader, which ultimately is the goal. Set realistic expectations for yourself and you are more likely to succeed, stick with it, and learn the finer points of trading that will turn you into the unstoppable trading machine that we all dream of becoming.