❕ Most Trading Problems Aren't Strategy Problems
A lot of traders spend years searching for the perfect setup, indicator, or risk model. In reality, their strategy isn't what keeps them from making money.
The biggest losses usually happen after a completely normal losing trade.
You get stopped out, become frustrated, convince yourself the market "owes you one," and take another trade that wasn't in your plan. Then another. Position size gets bigger, patience disappears, and by the end of the day you're trying to recover losses instead of following your edge.
Here's an exercise that's worth doing.
Open your trading history from the last few months and separate your losing days into two groups.
📊 Days where you followed your plan, respected your risk, and simply lost because that's part of trading.
🛍 Days where you ignored your own rules, revenge traded, moved stops, overtraded, or increased size because you were emotional.
Now remove the second group and look at your results again.
Many traders discover they don't actually have a strategy problem. They have a handful of emotional days every month that erase weeks of solid execution.
That's why your trading journal shouldn't just record entries and exits. It should answer questions like:
🪙 At what point do I usually start breaking my rules?
🪙 After how many consecutive losses does my decision-making deteriorate?
🪙 Is there a specific time of day when I consistently trade worse?
🪙 What mistake costs me the most money over an entire month?
Those answers are often more valuable than another chart pattern.
The traders who survive for years aren't the ones who never make mistakes. They're the ones who recognize when emotions are starting to take over and stop trading before one bad decision turns into ten.
✅@futures
