You had a losing month. You're tired of the setup, and there's a new one on YouTube that looks cleaner.
Before you switch, ask one question: did the strategy fail, or did you not trade it the way you wrote it down?
Those two problems need opposite fixes. If the rules are wrong, you change the rules. If you didn't follow them, new rules won't help, because you'll break those too.
Most traders pick the wrong fix, because a losing month feels the same either way. The account is down, and the setup is the easiest thing to blame.
Where can a losing month come from?
Every trade has three parts, and the loss can come from any of them.
What you check before you enter. This is your setup: price at a level you marked earlier, the bigger chart moving your way, a candle closing the way you wanted. Whatever your own list is.
How you got in. Right when the setup appeared, or after waiting for price to dip back a little. Or, on a bad day, early, because you were scared of missing the move.
What you did after. Whether you moved your stop, the price where you get out if the trade goes against you. Whether you took profit at your target, the price where you planned to get out with a win, or somewhere before it.
A good setup can lose money if you get in badly or handle the trade badly afterwards. In your results, that looks exactly like a bad setup. That is the whole problem.
Which question answers it?
"Did I follow my rules on this trade?" Yes or no, on every trade. If no, write down which rule you broke.
That one field sorts last month into two piles: the trades where you followed your rules, and the trades where you didn't. Then look at how each pile did on its own.
If you never logged this, you can still do it now. Go back through last month's trades one by one and mark each honestly. It's slower, and your memory will be kind to you, but it beats guessing.
What do the two piles tell you?
Here is a small example. You took twenty trades last month. You followed your rules on twelve, and those twelve made a little money. You broke a rule on eight, and those eight lost more than the twelve made. The month is red, but the strategy did its job.
The followed pile did fine, the other pile lost. That's the example above. The losing month came from the trades where you stepped outside your rules. It sounds harsh, but it's the better outcome, because you can fix it yourself: trade the strategy you already have, the way you wrote it.
Both piles lost. Following your rules didn't save you, so the strategy might be the problem. It might also be the market. A setup that pays when price keeps moving one way can struggle for weeks when price drifts sideways. Why your setup stopped working walks through how to tell those two apart.
The followed pile is tiny. If you followed your rules on only a few trades all month, you can't judge the strategy yet. You can judge one thing: you weren't really trading it. Start there.
What are the most common leaks?
These habits most often turn a decent setup into a losing month. Each one deserves its own box in your journal, so you can tick it on the days you did it.
Entering early. Getting in before the setup is complete, because you don't want to miss the move.
Widening the stop. Pushing your stop further away when price gets close to it. A small planned loss turns into a big one.
Moving the stop to your entry too soon. Price dips back, closes your trade for nothing, then goes on to your target without you.
Taking profit at the first wobble. You keep the small wins and cut off the big ones, and the big ones usually pay for the losers.
Sizing up after a win. Feeling confident and risking more on the next trade. That next trade is a normal trade with a bigger loss attached if it goes wrong.
Ticking "moved my stop" on the day you did it is uncomfortable. It's also the only way to find out what that habit costs you.
Why keep the setup separate from the entry and the exit?
Because otherwise a bad habit looks like a bad setup, and you throw away the wrong thing.
Say your setup is good, but you often take profit early. In your results, the setup looks average: the winners are small, the losers are full size, and the month comes out red. If the only thing you log is the setup, the setup takes the blame. Next month you're trading a new one, with the same early exit.
Now say you also log what you did after the entry, in its own box. The trades you held to target did well. The ones you closed early didn't. The leak was the exit, and the setup was never the problem.
What to track in a trading journal shows how to log these as separate fields without turning every trade into homework.
Can one month really tell you?
Not much on its own. A month is a handful of trades, and a handful can look bad by luck alone, the same way a coin can land tails five times in a row.
So treat this as a first look. If the followed pile lost, look closer before you throw the setup away. If it did fine, keep following the rules, and hold off on calling the setup proven. A real pattern needs more than one month of the same field, marked every time.
Questions people ask next
How do I know if I have a discipline problem?
Look at how often you answer "no" to "did I follow my rules?" and what those trades did. If rule-breaking trades show up often and lose more than the others, discipline is the thing to work on first.
Should I change my strategy after a losing month?
Not before you've sorted the month into the two piles. If the trades where you followed your rules did fine, a new strategy will only give you new rules to break.
What counts as breaking a rule?
Anything your written plan didn't allow: a trade it didn't ask for, a stop moved further away, a bigger size than you planned. If your rules aren't written down, write them first, or there is nothing to break.
How many trades do I need to judge my strategy?
Far more than one month usually gives you. A few dozen trades give you a hunch. Well past a hundred, all taken the same way, start to tell you something you can lean on.
What can you do this week?
Add "did I follow my rules?" to your journal if it isn't there yet. Add a box for each leak above that you recognise in yourself. Mark every trade honestly. At the end of the month, sort the trades into the two piles and look.
EdgeFlow keeps the three parts of a trade separate: what you checked before you entered, how you got in, and what you did after, each with its own count of trades. The pages on following your rules and trading analytics have more on how that works.