Imagine you’re holding a call option. It looked great when you entered. 

But since then, the setup hasn’t been going according to plan…

Risk is climbing, time decay’s working against you, and the key resistance level you’ve been watching isn’t breaking. 

So you do what disciplined traders do … you cut the trade.

The next day, the stock pops 10%. That call you sold? It’s up 180%.

Now you’re sitting there thinking, “I should’ve held. I made a bad decision.”

That’s a tough feeling. We’ve all been there. It stings.

But I’ll tell you flat out: 

You didn’t make a bad decision. You fell into a results-oriented, outcome-based mindset. 

And it’s one of the sneakiest ways you can sabotage your trading…

But closing that trade was still the right decision…

Outcomes Don’t Define Decisions

Let’s say you flip a coin and call heads. It lands tails. Were you wrong?

Not really. You just didn’t win that toss. You made a fair guess with fair odds. 

That’s trading. Sometimes you take the right shot, and it doesn’t work. That doesn’t mean the shot was wrong.

Same with closing a trade. If you exited because your edge was gone, or your risk-to-reward ratio flipped, or the chart turned against you … good. 

But this goes against our natural human tendency to be results-oriented.

When the price moves in your original direction after you’re out, your brain tries to rewrite the story. 

“I should’ve stayed in. My decision was wrong.” 

That’s hindsight bias. 

It convinces you to hold longer next time. To ignore risk. To wait for hope instead of respecting probability. 

That’s how disciplined traders turn into degenerate gamblers.

Probability Over Profit

Trading is about making the best possible decision with the information available. 

You might make money doing the wrong thing. Maybe you hold a loser, and it bounces. Maybe you buy a far out-of-the-money weekly with no research and get lucky. 

But luck won’t last. 

What will last:

• Cutting risk when the odds shift
• Letting trades go when theta stacks up
• Following your plan instead of your emotions

If your decision to close was built on logic and risk assessment, that’s a win. The outcome doesn’t change that. 

You made the call with the best data you had. You respected time decay, risk-to-reward, and trend strength.

Even if the market reversed afterward, that doesn’t mean you made the wrong move. 

You made the right decision at the time. And you lived to trade another day. 

Results vs. Reason

Every trade has two sides: the result and the reason. 

Most traders only look at the result. But the best traders study the reasoning.

Before you enter or exit a trade, ask yourself:

• Has the setup broken down?
• Is the stock moving against the trade’s thesis?
• Have your risk parameters changed?
• Is time decay starting to stack up?

If the answer to any of those is yes, you need to adjust (even if it means taking a small loss).

Say it with me: “Just because I took a small loss doesn’t mean it was a bad decision to enter.”

You can lose money on the right decision. And you can make money on the wrong one. 

Over time, consistently good decisions will win.

If you closed a trade yesterday and watched it move in your favor today, don’t beat yourself up. 

What matters is how you made the call. 

Were you thinking clearly? Were you following your rules? Did you weigh the risk?

If yes, stand tall. 

Outcomes change. Good decisionsdon’t.

Happy trading,
Ben Sturgill

*Past performance does not indicate future results