Every trader should have a personalized approach to trading. This means adapting the system to fit your unique personality.
We're all different, and trying to trade the same way is impossible and, above all, unproductive.
While all traders go through similar phases, there are subtle individual nuances that can make us better traders. It’s about finding a personalized approach that yields better results.
Let's avoid generalities that apply to everyone. As one of Murphy's Laws says: "If a sign says 'one size fits all,' it fits nobody."
The same goes for trading. You need to personalize your trading approach as much as possible, tailoring it to yourself like a custom suit.
Some traders keep a trading operations journal, which is very respectable. Supposedly, reviewing this journal will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, where you have potential, and what you need to work on the most.
Personally, I can't keep a trading operations journal for three reasons:
1. I’m not meticulous enough to carry out such a task. I know I’d do it for three days and then stop.
2. While it can be an important tool, I believe there are even more crucial tools. In trading, you must simplify everything to the maximum and prioritize the most important over the less important. For me, writing a trading journal is secondary and would bring more drawbacks than benefits.
3. I’m convinced that a trading journal can be entirely and more effectively replaced by practice. This practice transforms into experience thanks to our brain, much like AI. Due to its flexibility and adaptability, the brain learns quickly, identifying what's correct and what's not through continuous practice without needing a journal that would take up valuable time that could be spent trading.
This is regarding a trading operations journal. A trading journal, however, is different.
The goal of a trading journal, as opposed to an operations journal, is to capture the essence of trading through writing. It helps to retain this in your brain to aid in automating it.
I do this by writing articles. It's not about writing for others but for myself. It helps solidify my trading strategies, recall fundamental aspects from the past, and record valid data from my market research.
Every serious trader should do this, if not through a blog, then in a notebook.
You must remember that no matter how good you become, "Sometimes God places the solution in the hands of simple souls." Therefore, the first commandment of any trader should be humility. There will always be someone who knows more than you; count on it.
Moreover, this trading journal should be as accurate as possible because everything we write, our brain will believe. If we lie, it will negatively impact our market operations.
So, the more honest and detailed we are, the more benefits we will gain from this practice.
Start writing your trading journal, documenting all your experiences!