The Year in Review: 5 Ideas That Saved Us From Ourselves

As 2025 closes, the temptation is to look forward. We want to set big goals for 2026. We want to promise ourselves that next year will be different.

But progress in trading is rarely about finding a "new" thing. It is usually about deeply understanding an "old" thing that we keep forgetting.

This year at MyTradingPsychology.com, we spent some good time with dissecting the human brain. We looked at why we self-sabotage, why we freeze, and why we lose money even when we know better.

If you are only going to remember five things from everything we wrote in 2025, make it these five.

1. You Are Not Stupid. You Are Hijacked.

(From "The Physiology of Stupidity")

The biggest breakthrough for many of us this year was realizing that a bad trade is not a character flaw. It is a plumbing issue.

When you feel the urge to revenge trade, your amygdala has literally stolen the blood flow from your prefrontal cortex. You are not making a bad choice. You are chemically incapable of making a good one.

The Lesson: Stop trying to "outthink" your emotions. You cannot reason with a brain that has no blood. When the heat rises in your chest, step away. Fix the physiology first.

2. Activity is the Enemy

(From "The Ambush Predator" & "The Ultimate Hack")

Evolution wired us to forage. Our ancestors survived by moving, searching, and doing. But in the market, the "active forager" is the prey.

We learned that the most profitable state is stillness. We learned to be the Ambush Predator (think of the cougar on the ledge) rather than the wolf running through the forest.

The Lesson: If you are having fun, you are probably gambling. If you are bored, you are probably executing. Replace the addiction to action (clicking buttons) with an obsession for verification (checking plans).

3. High Win Rates Cause Paralysis

(From "The Paralysis of Accuracy")

We explored the strange paradox where getting better at trading makes it harder to pull the trigger.

When you expect to win 95% of the time, a loss stops being a statistic and starts feeling like an insult. You freeze because the emotional stakes of being "wrong" become too high.

The Lesson: Be a scientist, not a sniper. Your goal is to collect data, not to protect a perfect record. If you can't click the button, your position size is too big. Drop it until the fear vanishes.

4. Survival is the Only Growth Strategy

(From "The Russian Roulette Strategy")

We looked at the math of ruin. We saw that a strategy with an 83% win rate can still bankrupt you if you play it long enough with the wrong sizing.

Most traders try to optimize for how much they can make. The ones who are still here in December optimized for how much they could lose.

The Lesson: Never bet the house. Bet a brick. If a single trade can take you out of the game, you aren't trading. You are playing Russian Roulette.

5. Discipline is Just Denial in Disguise

(From "When Following the Plan Becomes the Mistake")

Finally, we tackled the hardest truth of all: sometimes "following the rules" is just a way to hide from reality.

We learned that holding a losing trade just because "it hasn't hit my stop yet" isn't discipline. It is passivity. The market often whispers that a trade is dead before it shouts.

The Lesson: True discipline isn't blind obedience to a plan you made three hours ago. It is staying awake. It is having the courage to kill a trade the moment the logic fails, even if the rule says you can wait.

The 2026 Challenge

Next year, don't try to add more indicators. Don't try to trade more markets.

Try to do less.

Try to be bored. Try to be safe. Try to be the person who waits three days for the perfect setup, executes it without a pulse, and goes on with their life.

Happy New Year. See you in the market.