Why Your Best Trades Lead to Your Worst Losses
Most traders think their worst losses come from bad analysis or poor discipline. But often, the real shift happens much earlier — at the moment confidence replaces curiosity.
I want to start by sharing something a trader wrote to me recently.
They described a cycle that will feel uncomfortably familiar to many.
They have good days.
They take good trades — usually when they’re trading small.
Then confidence builds.
They increase position size.
And they lose far more than they expect.
They’re clear about one thing:
They know it’s not the market.
It’s not the setup.
It’s not intelligence.
In their words:
“I know it’s my brain.”
That’s where this gets interesting.
Most traders describe this pattern in the same way:
They do well.
They feel confident.
They size up.
They blow it.
And then come the explanations — greed, fear, lack of discipline.
But those labels don’t really explain what’s happening.
Because the strange part is this:
Your best trading period and your worst trading period often come from the same knowledge.
The same charts.
The same rules.
The same tools.
The same market.
So what changed?
Not the information.
The state.
Most traders don’t realise they’re trading as two different versions of themselves.
There’s one version that trades small.
That version waits.
It hesitates.
It reads.
It misses trades.
It feels uncertain.
It doesn’t feel powerful.
But it survives.
Then there’s another version.
This one appears after a run of good trades.
It feels confident.
Validated.
Certain.
Impatient.
This version sizes up.
And here’s the key difference:
This version doesn’t read the market anymore.
It uses the market to confirm what it already believes.
The chart hasn’t changed.
The setup hasn’t changed.
But the relationship has.
When you trade small, you need information.
You wait.
You check.
You hesitate.
You’re reading.
As position size increases, something subtle shifts.
You don’t need information anymore.
You need certainty.
And certainty feels like clarity.
But it isn’t.
Certainty is a state — not a signal.
The moment you stop reading, you start projecting.
That’s when trading quietly turns into gambling.
Not because you want excitement.
But because the identity has changed.
After the loss, size comes back down.
And suddenly, the reading returns.
Patience returns.
Clarity returns.
You think you’ve fixed the problem.
But nothing was fixed.
You simply changed states again.
That’s why the loop repeats.
Small size.
Reading.
Wins.
Wins.
Confidence.
Size.
Size.
Certainty.
Blindness.
Loss.
Fear.
Small size.
Not because you’re weak.
Not because you’re stupid.
But because nobody ever taught you to notice who is trading.
So before you ask, “How do I stop this?”
Try a quieter question.
Which version of you was actually trading
when you clicked the button?
Because until you can see the switch,
no rule will save you.
No indicator will protect you.
No strategy will hold.
The market didn’t change.
You did.
MJC Training Ltd