Your trading plan for 2018 is vitally important to your improvement as a trader.

A great plan can help you fulfill your potential. A poor plan can be self-sabotaging.

Here are three pro tips on proper planning for traders:

#1 Set two types of goals. While it’s fun to daydream about hitting big Performance goals. It’s the Process goals that will allow you to actually accomplish your performance goals. Spend A LOT more time on Process goals than you do on performance goals. You should review and journal about your Process goals each day. Maybe a few times per day…

#2 Realize that you may not know what is realistic in terms of performance goals. If you set unrealistic performance goals, you may feel like a failure when you are actually making good progress. Many traders abandon a great path to Consistently Profitable Trading because they don’t have someone to reaffirm that they are actually on the right path.

#3 Have an objective and impartial view of your trading strengths and weaknesses. Self-diagnosis is rarely a good idea. Not with health problems and not when you are deciding how you can fix your trading challenges.