A trading statement may sound like a strange phrase, it can give the impression of simply stating trading, which is not exactly what we had in mind. Instead, a trading statement should be your overall target and goal for your trading.
Think about business, most of them were set up with a mission in mind, something that they wanted to chive. Your trading statement is set up in very much the same way. It should detail exactly what your overall aim is with your trading, for some this may be simple, others it may be complex, but it should be kept short to a single statement, something that you can always refer back to as the reason why you started trading in the first place.
Before we get into it too much, let’s take a look at some of the mission statements that are out there from various businesses and companies around the world.
Google: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
Microsoft: “to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. We strive to create local opportunity, growth, and impact in every country around the world.”
Amazon: “We aim to be Earth’s most customer-centric company. Our mission is to continually raise the bar of the customer experience by using the internet and technology to help consumers find, discover and buy anything, and empower businesses and content creators to maximise their success.”
ASDA: “At Asda, our mission is to be the most trusted retailer. We help our customers to ‘Save money. Live better’. Learn how helping our customers to live better means Asda helps the planet too.”
As you can see, the mission outlines what their overall goal is, it helps to describe the organisation’s broad view for their future and the sort of image and reputation that they will be aiming for. More often than not it will be a very broad statement, not giving details on how it will be achieved or the steps along the way, just the overall image and endpoint that is desired.
So how can this be brought into the trading world and how exactly will you be able to make a trading mission statement of your own?
The first thing that you need to think about is exactly what you want to achieve from trading. Some people want to be able to quit their job, others just want a little bit of extra money, this will be the starting point of your mission statement. So have a think, if you wish to quit your job and to trade full time, have that as your main mission, if you just want an extra $100 per month, then set that as your mission, everything that you do from this point onwards will be to try and achieve these targets and to reach your mission’s goal.
Your mission needs to be realistic, there is no point setting a mission statement of being a billionaire through trading, it just isn’t going to happen. You need to set it to a realistic level, if you want to turn your balance of $1000 into a balance of $10,000 or $50,000 then these are more achievable targets, they may seem a long way off and that is not necessarily a bad thing as it gives you something o really aim for and to aim for it for a long time to come, keeping you focused on that target. Just remember that once you hit that target you will need to keep yourself there and not to then slip away again.
Once you have worked out what your trading statement is, you need to get it printed out and put up on the wall. This will then be a constant reminder of what it is that you wish to achieve. It needs to be there as a constant reminder so it needs to always be there for you to refer back to.
It is also important to understand that once you have hit your mission or that you are at the level that you want, you do not let things slip. You need to be able to maintain it, if you simply hit the target of the mission and then let it drop off, you are not achieving your goal, so hit it and keep it, this is the main aim of the mission, to maintain it for as long as possible, as soon as it falls, the mission has ended and it will be quite hard to then get back to it again.
So remember your mission statement should be your overall aim, something that you wish to achieve and then maintain, so have a think about yours, make sure it is realistic, and then get working towards it.
