You Start Skipping the Work That Got You Here

Three good days.
Not spectacular.
But good.
Green Monday.
Green Tuesday.
You lean back from the screen.
There it is again.
Another good day.
You close the platform.
Usually this is when you go back through the trades.
Entries.
Exits.
What you saw.
What you missed.
Maybe pull up tomorrow’s charts.
Mark a few levels.
See where price has been.
But tonight?
You already know what happened.
You traded well.
The numbers prove it.
Besides, the guys are getting together for a drink.
You’ve earned one.
Maybe two.
The charts will still be there tomorrow.
You shut everything down.
Funny.
A few days ago you couldn’t study enough.
Now you’re apparently a very busy person.
Something else has been happening these last few days.
There’s a different step in your walk.
Nothing obnoxious.
You’re not walking around telling people you’ve figured out the market.
You haven’t lost your mind.
But you feel pretty damn good.
The market is starting to make sense.
You’re seeing things sooner.
You’re not hesitating as much.
A setup starts forming, and you recognize it.
Price moves the way you expected.
You take your profit.
Nice.
Then it happens again.
Very nice.
Maybe all those months of staring at charts are finally paying off.
Maybe something clicked.

And somewhere around the second or third good day, a little calculator appears on your shoulder.
Nobody invited it.
But there it is.
You made $450 today.
Yesterday was $375.
Monday was $525.
The calculator gets to work.
If you can average $400 a day...
Twenty trading days...
That’s $8,000 a month.
Not bad.
Actually pretty damn good.
The calculator keeps going.
Twelve months...
You stop it there.
No reason to get carried away.
You’re trying to be realistic.

Thursday morning, the alarm goes off.
You open one eye.
Bad idea.
Last night’s bourbon is jackhammering your forehead.
The alarm says 5:00.
You usually get up early.
Coffee.
Charts.
Levels.
See what happened overnight.
Not today.
You roll over.
Forty-five minutes later, you try again.
The bourbon is still there.
You make coffee.
Strong coffee.
By the time you sit down at the computer, you’re already behind.
You open the first chart.
Something looks wrong.
Not wrong exactly.
Empty.
Your levels aren’t there.
Of course they aren’t.
You never drew them.
You were going to do that last night.
Before the second drink.
Or maybe it was the third.
No big deal.
You know roughly where they are.
You’ve been watching this market every day.
You start drawing a few.
One here.
Maybe another there.
Market opens in eight minutes.
Good enough.
You’ll figure out the rest as you go.
And why wouldn’t you?
You’ve been doing pretty well lately.
The session starts.
Things move quickly.
Something sets up.
You think.
Maybe.
Normally you’d have a level there.
Or maybe it was a little lower.
You look at the chart.
Price is moving.
There’s no time to overthink it.
Click.
For a moment, nothing happens.
Then price moves against you.
Fine.
One trade.
The next one looks better.
Click.
That one doesn’t work either.
Now you’re annoyed.
Not panicked.
Just confused.
This isn’t how the last few days went.
Another setup appears.
You take it.

By late morning, the little calculator has stopped talking about your monthly income.
Funny how quiet that thing gets.
Now it’s calculating something else.
How much you’re down.
How much you need to get back to even.
How much one decent trade could fix.
Yesterday you were projecting December.
Today you’re trying to survive lunch.
The market closes.
Bad day.
You sit there for a minute.
Then close the platform.
You know what you’re supposed to do next.
Journal.
Charts.
Review the trades.
Figure out what happened.
Instead, you look at the time.
The guys are getting together again. Thursday night NFL game is the new toy.
You go.
Why wouldn’t you?
It was one bad day.
That’s all.
Everybody has them.
You’ll get it back tomorrow.
Besides, the market was strange today.
Choppy.
Hard to read.
A couple of trades just didn’t work.
It happens.
The charts can wait.
You order another drink.
The little calculator on your shoulder has gone quiet.
But it hasn’t left.
Friday isn’t much better.
Not terrible.
But not good.
You finish slightly red.
Okay.
Two days.
Still nothing to worry about.
You were up three days before that.
You’re still ahead.
The homework that night is brief.
Very brief.
You look at a couple of charts.
Scroll around.
Draw a level or two.
Good enough.
You know what you’re looking for.
At least you think you do.

The weekend passes.
By Sunday night you’ve mostly explained away Thursday and Friday.
Two rough days.
Nothing more than that.
Monday comes.
Another loss.
Now something feels different.
You close the platform.
Don’t move.
Three green days.
Then three red ones.
The swagger isn’t completely gone.
But it’s limping.
The calculator comes back.
Not to tell you what you’re going to make this month.
Now it’s telling you how much of those three good days you’ve given back.
Same calculator.
Different job.

That night the journal comes out.
So do the charts.
Screenshots.
Notes.
You start going through the trades.
Really going through them.
Why did you enter there?
What did you miss?
Was that even your setup?
You pull up another chart.
Then another.
You compare today’s trades with the ones from earlier in the week.
You draw tomorrow’s levels.
Carefully.
You check them again.
And somewhere in the middle of all that studying, you notice something.
The work you’re doing tonight looks familiar.
You used to do it every night.
Before the good days.
Before the calculator.
Before the extra drink.
Before you started winging the mornings because you had this figured out.
Three winning days were enough to make your routine feel optional.
One losing day wasn’t enough to make it feel necessary again.
Apparently you needed a few.
The first loss was just a bad day.
The second needed an explanation.
By the third, you finally started asking questions.

Maybe you’ve done your version of this.
A few losing days, and you’re a student again.
You want answers.
You review everything
You question everything.
You study.
You take notes.
You look for what you missed.
But give yourself two or three good days, and suddenly there’s not quite as much to study.
Why would there be?
Things are working.
You don’t need answers when you’re winning.
Winning is the answer.
At least that’s what it feels like.
When you’re losing, you want to know why.
When you’re winning, you think you know why.
I’m getting better.
Maybe you are.
Something has clicked.
Maybe it has.
But there’s another possibility that’s harder to see when your account is green.
Some trades worked.
That’s all you actually know.
And somewhere along the way, the things you were doing before those good days started feeling less important.
The review.
The homework.
The levels.
The preparation.
Not because you decided they didn’t matter.
You never made that decision.
They just started feeling less necessary.
Then came the first bad day.
You called it a bad day.
Then the second.
You found a reason for that one too.
It took the third before you finally opened the journal and started asking questions.

And maybe that’s the part worth noticing.
Those three green days?
You never asked much of them.
You took the money.
You gave yourself a little credit.
You let the calculator do some math.
Then you headed out for a drink.
You studied the losses until they made sense.
You never asked the wins to explain themselves.

_{Disclosure: Struggling Trader exists to share lessons, observations, and experiences from the markets. I’m here to help people think about trading, not tell them what to buy or sell. Every trader’s situation is different, and all financial decisions are ultimately your own responsibility. Markets carry risk, including the risk of losing money, so always do your own research before investing or trading.}