Sharpen Your Edge for 2026 – Part 2: The Quiet Cost of Not Reviewing

In the first piece, I asked a simple question:

Have you actually reviewed your trading year — or have you just remembered it?

Today, I want to go one step further, because there’s a cost to skipping that review.

And it’s rarely obvious at the time.

Most traders think the damage comes from bad trades.

In reality, it comes from unexamined behaviour.

Drift Is Expensive — But Subtle

When traders don’t formally review a year, nothing dramatic usually happens straight away.

There’s no single blow-up.

No obvious failure.

Instead, something quieter sets in: drift.

Rules get bent slightly more often.

Preparation gets a little looser.

Sizing creeps up after wins and tightens after losses.

Trades are taken “because it looks good”, not because they were planned.

None of this feels catastrophic in the moment.

But over time, it compounds.

And because it’s gradual, traders rarely connect the dots back to the absence of review.

The Same Year, Repeated

One of the patterns I see most often is traders having versions of the same year.

Different markets.

Different instruments.

Different headlines.

But the same outcomes.

They start each year hopeful. They promise themselves better discipline. They aim to be more selective.

And yet, six or eight weeks in, they’re dealing with the same frustrations:

• inconsistent execution

• emotional decision-making

• breaking rules they know they shouldn’t

• confidence wobbling after perfectly normal drawdowns

• 
  

When I ask whether they reviewed the previous year properly, the answer is usually some variation of, “Not really.”

That’s not a coincidence.

If you don’t understand what actually caused last year’s results, you don’t get a clean slate. You get a rerun.

Review Is Not About Beating Yourself Up

This is where many traders get it wrong.

They avoid review because they think it’s about criticism or self-judgement. It isn’t.

A proper review is neutral.

It’s about facts, patterns, and behaviour — not blame.

It asks:

• What did I do consistently well?

• Where did I lose control?

• Under what conditions did my process break down?

• What rules mattered most — and which ones did I ignore?

• 
  

Without that clarity, traders default to vague intentions:

“I’ll be more disciplined.”

“I’ll trade less.”

“I’ll manage risk better.”

Those aren’t plans. They’re wishes

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Why This Matters Now

The reason I’m writing this at the end of December is simple.

January has a way of giving traders false confidence.

New calendar.

Fresh motivation.

A sense of reset.

But if you haven’t reviewed properly, that confidence is built on nothing solid.

The market doesn’t care that it’s a new year. Your habits don’t magically reset at midnight on December 31st.

If you don’t stop and examine what actually happened in 2025, you start 2026 reacting — not operating deliberately.

The Real Cost

The real cost of not reviewing isn’t one bad trade.

It’s:

• months of repeating avoidable mistakes

• confidence eroded by inconsistency

• effort expended without progress

• another year where things felt “close” but never quite clicked

  
  

That’s not a market problem. That’s a process problem.

In the next piece, I’ll look at what most traders think a plan for the new year is — and why that’s usually not enough to change anything.

For now, reflect on this:

If you don’t review properly, you don’t move forward — you loop.