The Illusion of Progress

🟣 Tradetopia Field Notes — Issue #20

The Illusion of Progress

Filed: May 2025 | Location: Behind the Screens — Cartagena, Colombia 🇨🇴

Editor’s Note:

So many lessons don’t show up during backtesting sessions…

They only surface when you look at your patterns, not your charts.

In our last issue, we explored how inherited programming can shape your trading. Today, we dive into one of the most invisible, yet paralyzing loops in that programming:

Unconscious Desire

The cycle of endless wanting...longing... disguised as personal growth.

As traders... We’re especially vulnerable to it.

You Don’t Want Trading Success. You Want the Feeling of Progress.

Let’s be brutally honest.

You watch the videos. You tweak the plan. You deposit into your account. You buy the prop firm challenge. You fill out the journal. You screenshot the setup. You even tell someone you’re “finally locked in.”

But when it’s time to actually trade?

You overtrade. You hesitate. You rationalize. You wait for one more candle. You exit early. You hold too long. You freeze. You fumble. You relapse.

Why?

Because those other actions gave you the feeling of improvement. It FELT like you were about to see explosive growth. It FELT like the results you wanted would come faster this way. Sometimes we even convince ourselves that we're doing the right things when we're just hiding from reality.

The illusion of change.

These actions gave you movement without confrontation. Dopamine without risk. Progress without exposure.

That’s unconscious desire.

The nervous system’s favorite drug.

The Trading Version of a Treadmill

It’s not that you’re lazy.

It’s that you’ve wired yourself to associate effort with identity— But not with change.

So you build systems to organize your chaos… But not to face it.

You journal what you “should’ve done”… But avoid making the trade that would’ve given you proof.

You loop through the same lessons… Because part of you still gets comfort from being “in pursuit.”

Stuck between awareness and action.

Wearing the right jersey, but never stepping on the field.

From Desiring to Willing

You don’t break unconscious desire by wanting harder.

You break it by being willing.

Willing to execute, even when it's uncomfortable. Willing to follow through, even when you want to tinker. Willing to become consistent, even if it means boring repetition and slow outcomes.

Because wanting asks nothing of you. Willingness demands your presence.

Try This: The Audit That Actually Leads to CHANGE

Set a 30-minute timer.

Ask yourself:

Be honest.

• Are you tweaking your system more than you’re using it?

• Are you consuming more content than you’re executing?

• Are you planning to protect your ego instead of testing your skill?

Now: Circle one action you’ve been avoiding.

Do that. Today. No perfection. Just action.

This is how you break the cycle.

Your Move

The enemy of growth isn’t ignorance.

It’s stagnant awareness.

You already know what needs to change.

But knowing doesn’t move you forward.

Doing does.

From Tradetopia,
Mike Navarrete 🧙🏽‍♂️

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