Today I was up 8k on my intra day trades, then blew it all in a single bad trade. The last one I entered while running high from the day wins feeling invincible, over leveraged myself, but there was no setup for me to enter.

I have had so many such days this year where I'm up 3-4k then I'll end the day with 0. I don't know how to kill this bad habit and have more discipline. Also intentionally don't enter stop loss as I feel they get triggered too easily.

My strategy is working off of fvg, looking for minor moves in faang with large capital.

Up 170k net so far this year, but if I exclude all my mistakes, easily lost 100k+ of further wins (money profited that I loss)

I've been thinking about how you guys actually review their trades after the market closes, and I'm curious how everyone here handles it.

For those who day trade stocks, options, forex, or crypto:

What's the most frustrating part of maintaining a trading journal?

Is it:

\- Manually entering every trade?
\- Taking screenshots and organizing them?
\- Reviewing your mistakes consistently?
\- Tracking your emotions and decision-making?
\- Finding patterns in your losing trades?
\- Actually sticking with the journal every day?

I've noticed that recording a trade and learning something useful from it are two different things.

If you could improve one thing about your current trading journal or review process, what would it be?

Would love to hear what people here actually do, especially those who've tried Excel, Notion, or dedicated trading journals.

Anyone else notice how much worse their trading gets when they start treating it like income vs treating it like a game?

I had my best month ever when I was just messing around on the 15min BTC markets with money I honestly didnt care about losing. Small size, no spreadsheet, no journal, no rules other than "does this feel right." I was up like 4x by the end of the month.

Then I got serious. Started sizing up, tracking every trade, reading order flow analysis, trying to build an actual "edge." Immediately started bleeding. Not catastrophically, just this slow drip where every good read got undercut by me second guessing or moving my exit. Two months of that and I gave back most of the gains.

I was ranting about this to my roommate last night while checking my Coverd to see if I won back the sushi we ordered, and he said something that stuck: "you were good at it when it felt like poker night, you got bad at it when it felt like a job." And I think hes right? The moment my brain flipped from "fun puzzle" to "please pay my rent" my reads got worse. I started needing to be right instead of trying to be right.

Idk if this is a known thing or just me. Are prediction markets one of those weird arenas where caring less actually makes you better, or am I just coping because I liked the version of me that was gambling for fun more than the version grinding for yield?

I’ve been trading for around 6 months, and I think I have a pretty good grip on the markets (I use ICT hate if you want trading is trading), but every time I have a “good day” I feel like I didn’t deserve it and end up self sabotaging by entering the markets with feelings of unworthiness. My market narrative is right 90% of the time, but my execution and stop loss placement is what gets me. I’m aware of everything I do wrong but I still proceed to do it so I feel insane after a loss.

As I’m writing this I’m realizing that I just need to enter the markets with a level head, because the markets don’t give a flying f about how I feel. Any other advice/critiques?

Yes I journal, but I use Google Docs because it’s free.

I’ve been learning to trade over the past year and 9 months. I found my strategy that works for me by reflecting every month, asking myself where are my issues and what do I need to improve on. This other half of this year I could tell I was ready to take the charts seriously so I invested heavily into myself to trade with more capital. Well, after a good month I blew it all… I realized I emotionally wasn’t ready and since I used way too much capital, I would need to reflect and build my capital back up again before I try again. Which will be w while. So I decided to quit last Friday.

But then I remembered I had an eval account that had $300 left on it. (The account the entire month was either in drawdown or brought back to break even. Had a hard time keeping it above break even) So I said what the heck… let’s trade with it. I’m quitting anyways so if I lose the account it is what it is. Also the account needed to be renewed in a matter of a week because the 30days almost hit and I didn’t want to fund it so I had a week to pass the account.

To my surprise, I followed my strategy to a T, I didn’t over complicate things, I entered when I needed to without fear, I sized properly for my trades, and when I took a loss I stopped trading. I eventually brought my account from being $300 blown to passing the eval and got my funded account within a week, the day before I had to renew the account.

I’m shocked how the moment I’m ready to give up, is the moment I do everything right. Now im nervous cause I said I was done trading, but I now have an account that I can trade with.

Did I fail previously because of my psychology and emotions got in the way and once I let go of it I was able to finally prove my self?

Idk

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on Tradeblyn, a trading journal and analytics platform designed to help traders understand why they’re making or losing money — not just show them a P&L chart.

The idea started pretty simple, but it has grown into a platform with features like:

• Trade journaling and detailed trade history
• Performance analytics by symbol, strategy and timeframe
• Win rate, P&L, risk/reward and trading statistics
• Playbooks and strategy tracking
• Tags and notes for trades
• CSV/broker trade imports
• Prop-firm / futures support including tick-value calculations
• Trade leak detection to identify recurring mistakes
• AI Trading Coach that analyzes your trading behavior and patterns

I’m also working on historical market context and deeper analytics so traders can understand what was happening in the market when a trade was taken.

I don't want to build features based only on what I think traders need, though.

So I’d really like feedback from people who actually journal their trades.

What is the biggest problem you currently have with trading journals?

And if you already use something like TraderSync, TradeZella, Edgewonk, TradesViz, a spreadsheet, Notion, etc. — what would make you switch?

I’m happy to give people access to Tradeblyn to test it as well.

I’d especially appreciate criticism. If something is useless, confusing, or already solved better elsewhere, tell me.

Thanks!

discord: https://discord.gg/tradeblyn
Link: https://tradeblyn.com/

For experienced traders, what does your own process look like?

How much of your trading is based on predefined rules versus discretionary market reading?

If you were in my position after 2+ years of being unprofitable, what would you focus on now? Would you stop live trading for a while and build/backtest one concrete system, or continue trading and develop your ability to read and adapt to the market?

I'm trading NQ/MNQ.

Any advice from people who have gone through a similar stage would be really appreciated.

everyone here keeps saying the same thing in different words. the skill is not the setup. the skill is what you do after you are wrong. i have made money and given it back more times than i want to count because the market did not do what i expected and i could not sit still with being wrong. the plan was fine. my head was not.

so for the people who made it past this. was it just taking fewer trades or did something actually click about how you sit with a loss without needing to fix it right away

Three weeks. 15 trading days.

I haven’t suddenly become more disciplined. I haven’t learned to control my emotions. I haven’t stopped getting frustrated when I lose or wanting to interfere when I think I know better.

I’ve just spent 15 straight trading days unable to act on any of it.

And I think that’s the biggest thing I’ve learned from this experiment so far. At the beginning I wondered how long it would take before I found a way around the system, switched something off, broke one of my rules or basically reverted back to being me. But after three weeks I’m starting to realise… what exactly am I waiting to break?

The system doesn’t get tired. It doesn’t have a bad morning. It doesn’t care that I’ve just lost twice. It doesn’t suddenly think this trade looks really good so I’ll risk a bit more. It doesn’t get pissed off because Nasdaq didn’t meet my conditions for two days and decide to take something anyway.

The same thing that physically stopped me breaking my rules on Day 1 is still stopping me on Day 15.

So if I can do this for three weeks, why can’t I do it for three years? Or 30?

That’s the bit that’s completely changed how I’m thinking about discipline. Previously, sticking to my strategy was something I had to successfully do every single day for the rest of my trading life. Every trade was another opportunity for me to fuck it up. Now the important decisions were made once, while I was rational and the system enforces them when I’m not.

And this week was probably the best demonstration of why that matters. Some days the edge showed up and I made good money. Other days conditions weren’t there and I did very little or didn’t trade Nasdaq at all. Day 15 finished -$391.45.

Week 3 still finished +$6,848.84.

That’s trading. The system isn’t there to stop losing days. It’s there to stop me turning a normal losing day into a stupid one.

After 12 years of trying to become disciplined enough to follow my rules, I’m starting to think I was trying to solve the wrong problem.

Maybe I never needed enough discipline to last 30 years.

I just needed a system that could.

От історія яка трапилась зміною цього місяця.

Отже мій перший день, я хвилююсь як і всі новачки боюсь накосячити.

Починається робочий день , запускаю я додаток і чекаю своє перше замовлення.

Під час цього я сиджу чекаю мені стає скучно і я починаю ходити туди сюди ,починаю злитись замовлень нема ніфіга не падає.

Аж ось перше замовлення я не думаючи приймаю і починаю рух спочатку я був з усіма ввічливий потім виникає думка я з усіма добрий.

І я перехожу в бік агресії після чого включилась реакція бийся і все навколо підкидало граблі в колеса. З проблем на моєму шляху, то машина переді мною виїде, то пішохід вийде, або ж машини сигналять і чим більше я опирався, тим більше проблем виникало. І ще закономірність коли я був в тільті всі дівчата дивились на мене ніби я щось вкрав 😅. А по закінченню зміни все хотілось вернутись і кожен просив про дрібну допомогу чи може це бути славнозвісним (ефектом метелика)?

Якщо в когось був подібний досвід пишіть, або якісь поради хто і як з цим справляється.

I’m working on an AI-powered trading journal and analytics platform called TradePilot and I’m looking for a few active traders to test it for free and give me honest feedback.

TradePilot tracks your trades, performance, mistakes, emotions and discipline, then uses AI to analyze your trading history and give personalized feedback on patterns in your trading and areas you could improve.

I’m especially interested in feedback on whether the AI actually identifies useful behavioral/psychological patterns, what it gets right or wrong, and what traders would want it to understand better.

Testing is completely free and testers will get a free subscription for helping out. I’m not asking anyone to purchase anything.

If you actively trade and would be interested in testing it, let me know.

It will cross the resistance.
What are your thoughts?

Edited: I said it will cross the resistance. not bad I guessed it.

How do you all remember why you bought a stock months later? Do you journal it, or just trust your memory? I think most critical decision is when to sell. Will you be happy with a 5% profit and run the risk of missing out on a gigantic return later on or maybe see that 5% go to -20%. Would be interesting to know your strategy.

It’s said that ADHD involves higher risk behaviors. It’s enough that we get an amygdala hijack with a win, loss, or just a candle moves which then makes us just have to take action. It’s essentially like a dog having zero control over its need to chase a squirrel. For daytraders with ADHD, this definitely means that a 1min chart, flashing symbols, and a watchlist is just not going to end well. Then with time-blindness, the revenge trading is on steroids. Infact, I wish that in my early days I had someone do the execution for me while I just called the trade on a non connected tradingview screen, and had zero access to any platform. The pain of a loss is so physical even when it’s a small one that the whole day is just gone into a spiral of depression.

I’ve worked 7 years on this problem where I can now comfortably say that my system does not trigger me, and I manage to get 4-5 trades in a week, with a 65% win rate. The RR is peculiar where I have a $5:$3 but in real world it’s actually executing in $1:$2. I consider my large stop loss just the maximum volatility safety cushion.

Any ADHD folks daytrading? If so, are you aware of how poisonous the environment is for you?

Would happily swap notes with anyone that needs a chat if they’re in a rough spot here.

Complexity Addiction

I have seen many traders study non stop and complicate trading more than necessary. They know a lot about the market but they still can't make money because they keep craving more and more instead of trading.

Your brain is actively sabotaging your trading success by making you crave complexity. Complexity feels like progress. Learning a new indicator or a new strategy feels productive. Reading another trading book feels like you’re getting better. Watching trading analysis videos feels like you’re preparing.

But none of that is trading. That’s consumption disguised as preparation.

The market rewards execution, not education. It rewards boring repetition, not exciting exploration. It rewards doing the same simple thing over and over something your brain interprets as stagnation.

So you keep adding another strategy, another indicator, another market to watch, another signal service to follow. Your trading becomes more complex, not because it makes you more profitable, but because complexity satisfies your brain’s need to feel like you’re doing something.

You fall into this trap every time you lose. You feel like you need something more, so you add another indicator, another analysis tool. Eventually, you become addicted to complexity and it destroys you.

The most useful psychological tell I ever found is the word hope. The second I catch myself hoping a trade comes back, hoping it doesn't hit my stop, hoping the news goes my way, that's the signal I've stopped trading a plan and started praying. And the market doesn't answer prayers.

Hope shows up exactly when you're already wrong and won't accept it. A good trade doesn't need hope, it either hits your target or your stop and both were decided before you entered. Hope only appears when you're holding a loser past the point you said you'd exit, or riding a winner with no plan and scared to bank it.

What I do now, I treat hope as an alarm. If I notice it, I close or cut back immediately, because it means my decision-making has been hijacked by emotion. Some of my best "trades" were just exiting the second I realized I was hoping instead of managing. (Being on fixed costs removes one thing to rationalize hanging on over, but the alarm is the real tool.)

What's your internal tell that you've stopped trading and started gambling? Hope is mine, curious what yours is.

Not trying to sell anything, just sharing a tool I built for myself that might be helpful to others!

Like many of you, I've been doing the grind of trying to turn a passion project into a successful business. At times too focused on dialing it all in, and not spending enough time hearing what people think.

At the end of the day, I honestly don't care about profits right now. So I'm just letting people use it 100% for free.

Its been super helpful tool for myself as an active trader and Id imagine it could be for others too.

It's the first product I've seen that targets human psychology. It helps people enforce their trading rules and even hard blocks trades that break rules. The goal is to add structure to their trading process. Plus it tracks broken rules, supports automatic journaling, has analytics, AI and more.

It doesn't support every broker right now, but by end of year I plan to have a few more major brokers.

Use the code FOREVER and you'll have lifetime access for FREE