What SMART means
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound — a goal-setting framework built on the idea that goals meeting all five criteria are far more likely to actually be followed through.
Applying it to trading
- Weak: "I’ll trade more carefully" — too vague to ever check whether you followed it
- Strong: "This month, follow all 5 items on my pre-trade checklist on at least 90% of trades" — specific and measurable
- Weak: "I’ll reduce my losses" — no defined standard
- Strong: "Keep MDD under 15% this quarter" — a clear number with a clear deadline
Why measurability matters
A goal you can’t measure is a goal you can’t know whether you kept. Building goals around the data your journal already tracks — win rate, leverage, MDD, trade count — lets you check, in hard numbers, whether you actually hit it by month’s end.
Revisit your goals periodically
A goal you set once doesn’t need to stay fixed forever. Review it quarterly against your journal’s data, and update it to match your current skill level and account size.
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