Everybody wants to be successful. We want to succeed at home, at work, school, and in our finances. And quite frankly, everyone has the inert potential to be great. The question is ‘Are we all ready to do what it takes to be successful? Do we strive for mastery in our chosen fields’?
It is natural for humans to shy away from things that “stress us” we prefer things are easy, convenient and effortless. Operating from our comfort zone appeals to us.
This natural tendency becomes conspicuous even in our professional lives. In skill acquisition, instead of focusing on our areas of weakness till we overcome them, we prefer tilting towards our strengths. We go for skills that resonate with our abilities and talents.
One on hand, it seems we are winning, since we spend countless times practicing to be better at what we know and love. With constant practice comes proficiency and mastery. However, after all these weeks, months and years of rigorous practice, we have not achieved anything. Why? Our weaknesses didn’t go away. They still stare us in the face. They do not just vanish because we worked on our strengths.
Most of the time, our practice methods are just conventional. We follow routines strictly and do not even push ourselves beyond our limits. And because we are not under pressure to perform, we do what others have already done, the way they did it.
This practice will not help you attain mastery. To achieve excellence, your practice has to be resistant. This means you must think outside the box. Leave your comfort zone and do what people do not naturally do. Go the opposite direction of your natural tendencies. (For example, stock trading is likened to gambling. You bet against the house. This means that if all customers are lucky, they could all win.)
How? Do not be nice to yourself. Instead of focusing on your strengths like everybody else, focus on your weaknesses. Ensure the pains of doing what you are not very comfortable with. Push yourself to go the extra mile. As you practice, double your efforts. Set deadlines for yourself and meet them. Stretch yourself beyond limits. In practice, you must be your worse critic. Success comes to those who are satisfied with their present state.
One good thing about practice is that as you keep at it, you begin to come up with your own routines. You creatively develop strategies that work on your weaknesses. At this point, you develop your standard of excellence which of course is higher than those of the average man.
You can through constant practice attain excellence in many areas including Options trading. Options trading is simply buying and selling options contracts. Option traders buy and sell contracts.
There are two kinds of options known as the ‘Call’ and ‘Puts.’ The call option gives you the right but not the obligation to purchase stocks at the strike price within the duration of the stipulated expiry date. On the other hand, the Put option gives you the right and not obligation to sell stocks at the strike price any time before the expiry date of the contract. It’s really quite simple.
Options trading is a very profiting business if you know how it works. Most brokers offer a demo platform for newbies to learn how to trade.
For example, you want to buy a piece of underdeveloped land valued at $15000, but you do not have the money at that time. What do you do? You can sign a contract on the land that gives you the right to purchase the land if you so desire after a stipulated period. The contract becomes binding when you pay a premium fee of about $1000.
What do you do?
First, you can keep the contract hoping that the Land will appreciate to about $50,000 at the expiration of the contract. Then you buy the Land for $15000 and gain $35000 before tax.
Secondly, if you do not have the $15000 to buy the Land, you can sell the contract in the open market for approximately $7000 and keep the $6000 profit.
This may not be as easy as it seems. You lose everything including the premium if the stock does not appreciate, but rather depreciates at the end of the period. Options trading is similar to betting on horses at the racetracks. You bet against all the other bets.
How to become a good options trader
Read Books, Use Simulators and Practice:
To grasps the basics of options trading, you need to read books.
As you read, you will discover the option styles (American and European) and how to take advantage of them.
While the famous American style option is exercisable before the expiration, for the European style to be exercised, you will have to wait until the expiry date.
Do not spend all your money and time on books alone. In addition, you can take options trading advisory courses to broaden your knowledge of the business.
Before jumping into trading with real money, you may need to use demos for trading practice. This is highly recommended.
During the real trading, it is advisable that you begin with smaller amounts. This is because as a beginner, you tend to suffer more losses than profits. Investing huge sums will only be an uncalculated risk. With time, you will gain adequate knowledge and understanding of the business, and then you will be able to invest more and more for a better profit margin.
Although you may not be naturally gifted and talented in trading and you may also not have the analytical skill to succeed in trading, however, with resilient practice, you can overcome such weakness and gain proficiency in the trade such that you can devise your own trading strategy and excellence standards for success in the business.
Since Options betting is a zero-sum game, and your loss is the seller’s gain and vice versa, you may require training and options trading advisory so as to maximize profit and minimize losses.
