The process of learning is an individual thing. Some of us prefer to figure things out alone, while others need the support and interactivity of others to learn. The way you learn becomes a factor in your progress as well. Some of us learn best visually, others by hearing or auditory means, still others through doing and repetition. Me? I pretty much have to do all three. I learn best what I can see, hear, AND do whatever it is I’m supposed to be learning. How does your learning affect how your trading is improving?

If you’ve been learning to trade on your own and can’t seem to improve at the rate you would like, you probably already know that getting a trading coach or mentor could really give you the boost and attention you need. The right one can help you assess your trading to the smallest details, and amazingly, make the smallest suggestions that could make the biggest impact. The mentor can show you things, explain things, and probably even give you homework and trading materials to study.

Also, another alternative for learning to improve your trading would be to join a group of traders who want to do the same thing. Invariably, there will be traders of all levels in the group, hopefully some with more experience than you. All I know is that when I was learning to play tennis when I was in middle school, everyone always told me to play with people better than myself if I wanted to improve faster. I still tell my nieces and nephews that today. I also remember taking private tennis lessons, but I always enjoyed the group lessons more. They were so much more fun, and cheaper. Finding the right group of traders could work this way for you as well.

Searching for and gathering tons of trading information would be yet another way to improve your trading. But how tedious and time consuming is that? Very. What you may want to consider is leveraging websites that have already done a lot of that searching for you. These websites contain trading libraries, downloadable files, chat rooms, courses, and external links to relevant sites and articles. By using these websites, you can get much, if not all, of the trading information you need, reducing your searching time to a fraction of what you would have spent surfing the internet to find it on your own.

The Novel Idea
What if you could combine having a mentor in a group setting and access to centralized trading resources? What a novel idea, yes?! The trade off to sharing the mentor would be that it would be more affordable (e.g., CHEAPER!) but still valuable and maybe even more fun (like in my tennis lessons). Group learning has a lot of benefits – including, but not limited to, learning from others, helping others, support for when you’re not doing so well, and people to celebrate with when you are doing well! AND, having a centralized trading resource could free up tons of your time. This type of environment could be a godsend for lots of traders.

So once you figure out what type of learner you are (alone vs. group), how you learn (visual, doer, audio), and what you would like to learn (centralized trading depository), you can narrow down and define the learning environment best suited for you. Once you do this, your trading should improve immensely.