Hi Folks…
What is accountability and how will it help you be a more successful trader?
The respected Merriam Webster dictionary defines accountability as: “An obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.”
Of course, when working in a day job most people are automatically accountable for their actions to their immediate manager who will be keeping a watchful eye on things.
The manager is in turn accountable and responsible for the actions of his or her team members and so accountability and obligation are an intrinsic part of most employees working day.
In simple terms and with few exceptions, employees are obliged to be responsible for the results of their actions.
The same can be said for self-employed people who have their own clients. The paying client in effect becomes the manager to whom the self-employed contractor is responsible and accountable.
“But for independent day traders working from home the situation is usually very different.”
Let’s now explore the importance of accountability and then I want to share with you Five Great Reasons how it can help you so you can be a more successful trader.
Trader Isolation
As a solo trader you may not get much opportunity to talk with others about your trading. In fact, it is easy to become so wrapped up in your trading world that you might not even talk about trading to your closest family members or even your friends.
There can be many reasons for this type of ‘trader isolation’ being allowed to happen and sometimes it is even by choice rather than chance. Some traders actually choose not to discuss their trading with other people and especially not with those closest to them.
Unfortunately, a consequence of any ‘trader isolation’ is that you may be unknowingly creating a very negative trading psychology because of the impact this isolation has on your brain’s chemistry.
Brain Chemistry
This is because there are two very important neurotransmitters in your brain that you need in a balanced way so they can help you gain the trading success you want. If either of these two neurotransmitters are not working for you it can cause unpleasant psychological and physiological side-effects.
These mental and physical side-effects can severely hinder your ability to achieve the trading success you really want.
The first of these brain chemicals is Serotonin. Of the approximately 40 million brain cells, most are believed to be influenced either directly or indirectly by serotonin.
This includes the brain cells related to your mood, appetite, sleep, memory, and learning; all of which are important to your trading.
Serotonin is also known to play a part in influencing your ‘social behaviours’ and there are many researchers who also believe that an imbalance in serotonin levels may influence your mood in a way that leads to depression.
So it seems that maintaining a positive balance of serotonin in your body is important for your positive mood, keeping your memory functioning well and being able to learn new things more effectively.
It is also important to have social interaction with other traders as this is a beneficial way to keep your serotonin fed social behaviours active and avoid slipping into a trading depression.
The second neurotransmitter that is essential to your success is Dopamine. Dopamine is your ‘reward chemical’ that produces those feelings of pleasure when you have succeeded at something.
Dopamine is your ‘feel good’ controller and feeling good about yourself and your trading activities is important especially at the times when things are a bit tough; such as when you have had a string of losses.
So if you are not involved in enough social interaction to balance your serotonin, and you are not getting enough trading success to produce the feel good factor from dopamine, then your brain may have an imbalance of these two important ‘success chemicals’ resulting in you struggling unnecessarily in your efforts to make your trading succeed.
So how does all of this relate to accountability and why should you care?
How Does ‘Traders Accountability’ Help?
Most successful people understand that being accountable only to yourself, for example as a solo trader, isn’t as powerful for getting things done as being accountable to someone else.
When you don’t have to be responsible for your actions or account for your results to someone else, it is all too easy to allow yourself to become complacent or even to give up even before you have tasted some success.
Having little or no social interaction with other traders and not experiencing regular positive results may cause an imbalance of the two success neurotransmitters discussed earlier that could result in you eventually falling into the grip of trading depression.
But don’t worry because this is all easily avoided!
Five Great Reasons You Need Traders Accountability
Let me share with you now just 5 reasons how simply including active accountability as part of your trading can be a powerful and necessary part of your trading success journey.
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- Accountability Accelerates Your Performance.
When you connect with other traders, and especially a trading coach either 1-on-1 or in a program, you have independent help in developing and executing your ‘trading success plan’.
You will have the resource of other people’s ideas and experiences available to help you develop a sure-fire winning strategy that you can then execute with confidence all the while knowing you have support in achieving your goals.
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- Accountability Helps You Measure Your Success and Progress.
Knowing you will have to regularly report your activities to someone else will help you stay focused on your outcomes and encourages you to set milestones to measure your progress along the way.
In this way, with the encouragement of your accountability partners, you can easily track how close you are to reaching your trading outcomes.
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- Accountability Keeps You Engaged.
There are bound to be things that come up that will distract you from your trading outcomes and may even throw you off course altogether.
Knowing that you have to regularly report back about your progress, even when you are bored, distracted or tired, will keep you going toward achieving your trading dreams rather than simply giving up.
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- Accountability Will Keep You Responsible.
When you are working with people who push you to make commitment and set outcomes for your trading and then rely on you to give feedback reports, you will quickly realize that you are ultimately responsible for how much progress you make every day.
Accounting for your actions regularly will cause you to take a good look at yourself and your trading activities so you can start eliminating the excuses and start making deliberate actions that bring about your intended success.
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- Accountability Will Validate Your Thoughts and Ideas.
When you have people to be accountable to, you can silence your inner critic and bounce your ideas off others who will give you constructive advice and offer different points of view based on their varied experience so you can make success enhancing decisions as you progress.
So there you have it, Five Compelling Reasons why you need to make accountability an essential ingredient in your trading success plan and I’m guessing you could think of more.
Remember, having supportive and non-judgemental trading allies that you can interact with regularly, as well as feeling a sense of commitment and camaraderie to them, will boost your motivation and accelerate the achievement of your trading outcomes.
So go ahead and bring Traders Accountability into your trading activities sooner rather than later, you won’t regret it!
Regards…
Les
“Working Always Toward Your Success…!”
P.S. I would love to hear from you so why not take a moment now to add a comment below. Oh, and please don’t forget to share and help others as well!