"My goal with options is to make 500-1000 a week."

"My goal with options is to make 500-1000 a week. Like I said I have a 30k account. Do you think it's doable?" I receive chats like this semi-regularly, so I want to make a post I can direct people to (because my thoughts remain the same). This is in NO WAY to shame the question. I understand the paradigm and think it's better to ask then to assume it's possible. There's enough negativity out there, no reason to bash on someone's naivete. With that intro, you can guess where this is going. I've been trading options for over 15 years and have a 22.8% CAGR from 2007-2021. There are FAR better traders than me out there, so I do not think I am any kind of example of what maximum potential looks like. That being said, statistically speaking the vast majority of traders have a hard time being profitable, let alone outpacing the market. In short, I would say it's possible - and this is ONLY because I think very few things are truly impossible. However, I think a return like this is so unbelievably unlikely that I cannot overstate how unlikely it truly is. I'd place it somewhere around the odds of winning the McDonald's monopoly game 3 times (single win probability is around 1 in 451,822,158). Let's gain some context using the midpoint, $750 per week. If we're assessing the ability to achieve that reliably each week, see the probabilities above. If we're assessing the ability to produce this on a monthly or annual basis, it equates to around $3,000/month (10% return) or $36K/year (120% return). That monthly return is certainly doable - doing that every month of the year is very unlikely. I find that translating the $$ return to a % return is a great tool to equalize the assessment. Many people will look at a seemingly small return, can I make $500/month on a $5000 account. $500 is a small amount and seems attainable as a $ figure. However, it's the same % as the example above. As we gain experience, many things are possible. When we're first starting out (within 5 years of starting to trade) objectives like this more often lead to traders being erased due to taking too much risk chasing an arbitrary target without regard to their skillset. Focus first on being profitable, then optimizing and increasing return potential (or variance reduction, whatever your goals are).