and it's hard to believe that it's been around for ten years. I loved watching the numbers fall and change.
In the past, I've tried to make money from the stock market. These were failures, but I could readily identify the reasons why they were failures. There were two earnest attempts, and the mistake was the same on each front - impatience. This time will be different, because I deem it thus.
The first time, I got a loan of $10K from my bank and tried to make a run at it. I was scatterbrained, but the principles that I was working from are the same as they are now. I was trying to do day trading, and found that I was entirely too nervous, and easily swayed by the love of penny stocks. 'Oh! But there is such great potential!' I was a romantic then. I would incessantly check the stocks that I'd bought, quivering and quavering on every single moment that there was a fluctuation. Too much stress, and a recipe for failure.
The second time, I was impatient because I'd made a gain, got out, then got into a position where I was paying way too much attention to the numbers once more. I was obsessive. I was checking these at least once every few minutes. I wasn't a very kind person to be around, because I was thinking about how I would make my latest mark, what I would do with the money. The other reason that I failed was that I didn't have enough money in the account at the time to really play the percentages. It is MUCH more likely for a stock to fluctuate 3-5% than it is for it to move 20%. I'd also not set definitive goals for what I wanted to accomplish.
I'm a bit wiser this time. I've learned more about appreciating the value of 'leaving things be' and 'following the plan'. I'm ever so fond of the concept of persistent self effort, and talk at length about it in Eleven Minute Anything and Fat Lady Blogging. I also learned a lot about not worrying about things.
The goal:
Consistently make 3% monthly gains on $3000 for a year
