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Perfectionism

Requiring flawless execution and the perfect entry, which produces missed trades, harsh self-judgement, and eventual avoidance.

Trading punishes perfectionism because the domain is probabilistic. There is no flawless trade, the best process regularly loses, and the optimal entry is only visible afterwards.

Two costs follow. Waiting for a perfect setup means skipping the good ones, which is a form of undertrading. And treating every imperfect execution as failure produces a steady stream of self-criticism that wears down frustration-tolerance until avoidance sets in.

Replace perfection with a threshold. A trade is acceptable if it meets the written criteria, full stop. Grading against a checklist rather than against an ideal keeps standards high and self-judgement out of it.

Related: undertrading, analysis-paralysis, fixed-mindset, process-goals

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