When you’re building a skill, you’re always training something. It could be the right skills being trained intentionally. Or bad habits being trained through neglect.

One thing I’ve noticed is that most trading approaches train you to make one big mistake on repeat. They teach you to focus on what’s similar, and ignore what’s different.

And I know this trap well, because I spent years doing it myself. It’s not because of stupidity. It’s because it feels like you’re being disciplined. You have rules, criteria, a strategy. It feels professional.

But in a probabilistic scenario, it leads to some shocking decisions. Hopefully by now, you understand that trading is probabilistic. There are multiple possible price outcomes, and a chance of each happening. Your edge comes from being able to estimate those probabilities with real accuracy.

But what happens when your approach is basically: “Identify a set of entry criteria that means it’s time to enter a trade.”

You’re implicitly saying those are the only factors that matter. That only the things that are similar each time will impact the probabilities. And everything that’s different is just noise that won’t influence anything. That’s a ridiculous way to look at any situation, let alone the markets.

Let me show you what I mean…

One of the things driving me crazy this year is people telling me Arsenal are going to “bottle” the league. When you ask them why, they say, “Look at the last few seasons.” They’re making an absolute statement based on what’s similar, and completely ignoring what’s different. Granted, it’s the same club. But the context has changed.

(OK, I already know the replies I’m going to get. Just let me have this one please!)

Or how about when you’re on a date and they say something like: “I don’t usually go for men in finance, they’re all the same.” What? Millions of people worldwide, absolutely identical. Who knew?! I’m being a bit facetious, but you get the point.

Only focusing on what’s similar is a lazy mental shortcut. It’s also inaccurate. And it leads you to false conclusions.

So you have a choice: do you want to take the lazy approach, or the profitable one? Because if you’re not fully analysing the context each time, you’ll eventually pay for it in your results.

This is exactly why we train members of DTDP to interpret the full context before they identify opportunities. But even if you’re not a member, here’s something practical to do before your next trade…

Before you enter, answer this: what’s one unique thing about this situation that could impact the probabilities, but I’d normally overlook?

If you do that every time, before long you’ll have a list of meaningful factors you weren’t even considering.

And if you want to learn how to do this properly, consider joining the Duomo Trader Development Program.