Are You Training Performance, Or Only Memorizing Data?

Have you ever wondered why so many traders pour months or even years of effort into training programs for binary options trading and still fail? Sometimes not only time, but money goes down this drain. Many coaching programs cost thousands of dollars a year to participate in. There are a lot of reasons why a trader could go through a comprehensive course and still fail, but here is one thought. What if it is because these programs focus on memorizing data and not on training performance?

What is the difference? Well, think for a moment about the types of learning resources which are out there for most traders:

• eBooks
• Webinars
• Seminars
• Textbooks
• Video tutorials
• Articles
• Forum threads
• Trading blogs

All of these are great resources, but they all share one common attribute which may explain why on their own, they are not enough. They are all passive learning tools. Reading a textbook or an eBook does not require you to actually try out what you are learning. Similarly, watching a video tutorial or webinar only requires that you sit and soak in the information. Reading forum threads remains a passive activity as well if you do not jump in and communicate. And even if you do, it only turns into an active learning opportunity if you combine it with testing.

I theorize that this is one of the main reasons that traders fail. When they do not start succeeding after reading fifty trading articles, they read sixty. When the first dozen trading videos do not do the trick, they watch another dozen. When the first half dozen webinars do not turn them miraculously into winning traders, they watch another handful to see if that will make the magical difference.

But think for a moment about other real-world professions and the training program associated with them. If you have ever met a medical professional in training, you know that class work and homework form only a slice of the learning pie, and certainly not the largest slice. Most of their time is spent actually treating patients at clinics and hospitals. Or think about a student training to become a professional chemist. Odds are, that student takes more and more lab classes as time goes by, and fewer lectures. They probably intern at a real laboratory for some time before they start working as a professional.

Or think about a new enlistee in the military training to become a soldier. That person certainly doesn’t sit around reading books about combat or watching videos about life on the battlefield. Instead, they go to boot camp, and they learn by doing. If soldiers, doctors, laboratory scientists, and other professionals trained solely with textbooks, videos and webinars, could they possibly perform their jobs? The answer is an obvious and resounding, “Of course not.”

How to Train Performance as a Binary Options Trader

If you look at your own educational resources and activities as a trader, maybe you will discover that you are only absorbing information and memorizing data. It is not enough to know how to trade in theory, you have to learn how to trade in practice. Education begins in a textbook or a video, but it culminates in the real world. No matter how many examples of good trades you look at or how many details you can recite about GDP and other economic concepts, none of it will mean a thing if you cannot turn it into positive trading performance.

So the next question is, “How do you do that?” How do you take your education to the next level, and do the equivalent of clinical shifts for medical students or boot camp for soldiers in training?

The answer lies fundamentally in testing and actual do-able homework assignments. The best trading coaching programs incorporate assignments that require you to actually do something, rather than simply giving you access to a ton of resources. If you sign up for a program that offers you access to materials but no exercises, you will have to come up with your own training program. But it is very important that you do so instead of simply reading and viewing materials.

Here are a few suggestions:

• When you learn a new concept, do not just store the information in your head and close your textbook. Instead, grab that concept and connect it immediately to the real world. Let’s say for example that you read about a price pattern today. Instead of simply memorizing what the price pattern is, why not go through months of historical charts circling the best examples?
• When you learn a new trading system, again, don’t just walk away from it. If it grabs you in any meaningful fashion, immediately run through at least one quick example using real charts. Actually try it, see how it works, if it has real potential, or if it can teach you a new concept.
• Run extensive backtests, and don’t settle for results that are simply “okay.” Shoot for better and better. If you do a test and you get a win percentage of 67%, run another and another until you can push that percentage higher and higher. Get used to spending a lot of time and energy on your trading. Push your system to perform better than you need it to in real life.
• Demo test extensively as part of your education. For some reason a lot of new traders seem to think they need to push off demo testing until after they have “completed” their educational program and backtesting. This is not really the case though, and doing so can really limit your learning process. A lot of the important connections you need to make to advance can only be made in real-time. Demo testing subjects you to pressures similar to those you will face when you are trading real money. You have no way to trade successfully if you have never faced those conditions as part of your training process. And you cannot face those conditions by reading a book or watching a video.

And this is precisely why so many educational programs for a wide range of professions incorporate training under tough conditions. That is why soldiers go through boot camp, and also why medical school residencies are the equivalent of boot camp for would-be doctors. As a binary options trader, you too need to put yourself through boot camp. So subject yourself to the pressures of trading in real-time before you trade with real money. Do plenty of demo testing, and take it just as seriously as you would your real account. One day, you will be trading with real money, and you will do a great job because you have practiced instead of relying solely on theory! When you are under pressure and are forced to make challenging decisions, you will make the right ones because you have done it before!