A Simple Ritual to Keep Emotions Out of Your Trades

Every trader has a system. Fewer traders manage to keep it intact once the session begins. The problem isn’t the system itself but the flood of emotions that come with real-time decision making.

You can’t trade without emotions. They’re part of being human.

But you can trade without letting emotions sabotage your system. The tool is surprisingly simple: journaling before the session.

Your Choice: Write It Down or Trade It Out

Take ten minutes before the trading session starts. Write down whatever is stirring inside you: anxiety, excitement, distractions, expectations. Don’t filter. The goal isn’t poetry, it’s awareness.

By putting your emotional state on paper, you stop it from leaking invisibly into your trades. It’s like calling out a shadow before it can sneak up on you. By doing this, you go through all those emotions even before you start trading. This notably diminishes the risk of those emotions surprising you in the middle of a trade.

Even if the feeling strikes, there’s a great probability you’ll immediately connect it to what you just went through when writing it down a couple of hours earlier.

Protecting the Walls of Your System

Alexander Elder often spoke about the balance between method, money, and mind. The system covers method and money. The journal is what protects the mind.

Your emotions will swirl around your system. That’s unavoidable. But once you’ve acknowledged them, they lose their stealth. They can still knock, but they can’t sneak in.

When a critical moment arrives, you’ll recognize the emotional pull. A stop being hit, a tempting reversal, the urge to double down will have smaller impact on your decisions.

You’ve already met it on paper, so you’ll find it much easier to dodge.

Journaling as a Shield

Think of journaling as armor. It doesn’t erase your emotions. It doesn’t make you robotic. It makes you prepared.

• The system stays intact because you’ve separated rules from moods.

• You stay sharper because you’ve already mapped the emotional terrain for the day.

• Your journal becomes a log of how emotions repeat and recycle, which over time shows you patterns as clear as any chart.

What the Daily Ritual Should Look Like

• Before the bell: open your journal.

• Write for 5–10 minutes.

• Name the emotions. Name the distractions. Name the hopes and fears.

• Then close the journal and open your trading system.

The act itself is small. The impact compounds. Over weeks and months, you’ll see how much steadier your system becomes when it’s shielded by awareness.

Note that it is very easy to skip if it feels like a busy day, or you’re just not in the mood. DON’T. Especially when you’re not in the mood. Because this “mood” is the very same bad emotions morphing your rational thinking. Next thing, you’ll be shaving the corners off your planned trades (because you’re in the “mood” to do so). And then you’ve opened the door to another losing day.

Trading is always a duel: your system versus your emotions. Journaling before the session tilts the fight in your favor. Challenge yourself to do it for a month and see what happens.

Want to send this post to someone who is great at finding excuses why not to journal?