Journal and review decisions
Preserve the evidence your memory will otherwise rewrite.
Outcome bias makes profitable mistakes look intelligent and disciplined losses look foolish. A journal separates decision quality from one result and creates data for improvement.
Record before and after
Before entry, capture context, thesis, trigger, invalidation, size and known events. After exit, record execution, deviations, costs and emotional state without rewriting the original rationale.
Grade process
A well-executed plan can lose; a reckless decision can win. Grade whether the process was followed, then analyse the result separately. Do not reward violations because they happened to profit.
Review comparable groups
One trade is an anecdote. Group decisions by setup, market regime, time horizon and execution quality. Look for repeated behaviour and sufficiently large samples before changing rules.
The lesson in three lines.
- 1Preserve the original decision before outcome is known.
- 2Grade process and outcome separately.
- 3Improve from groups of comparable observations.