e problem is that your research has been compromised by bad data, and thus your conclusions are wrong. You arent cursed, you get your share of good luck and not as much bad luck as it seemsyoure just not measuring it correctly. ere are two primary errors that cause faulty coding in this way. First, you attribute your mistakes to bad luck, and second, when you have good luck, you attribute those results to skill. ese errors bias the scales of trading justice to make variance seem unfair when its not. e next two gures illustrate this point.

Figure 1 represents a theoretical ideal, where your view of variance, your understanding of your skills as a trader, and your assessment of the mistakes that you make are accurate. You have a balanced view of fairness. Although theoretical, some are much closer to this view than others. Practically speaking, this means understanding the inevitable outliers, knowing that even the best setups in your system can lose, and focusing more on the big picture, not just the outcome of a few trades. Filtering variance this way allows you to see it more accurately, and focus on what you can control.

Figure 2 highlights how the two errors I mentioned can alter your perspective on variance and cause injustice tilt. First, if your mistakes were the predominant cause of your losses, but instead you attribute it to bad luck, then some bad luck is added to the scale. Second, if your prots were more likely a result of good luck, but you believe it was solely due to your skill, then some good luck is taken o the scale. You can imagine what happens when this bias plays out repeatedly, over time. Inevitably youd believe variance was unfairly against you, or that you were cursed. Consistently attributing good luck to your skill, and your mistakes to bad luck, overweights the scale on one side, making it seem like variance is against you. Bad luck appears to happen more frequently, and you tilt, believing youre getting screwed, when in actuality, youre mentally screwing yourself.

is pattern is further exacerbated by the fact that, typically, traders remember bad luck more than good luck, especially under emotional pressure. Remembering and focusing more on bad luck creates a biased perspective for the simple reason that when you add focus to something, you learn it better. So bad luck gets more attention and thus stands out more easily in your mind. Basically, youre really skilled at spotting bad luck and terrible at spotting good luck. To make matters worse, not only does this extra focus on bad luck bias your perspective overall, but when under emotional pressure from a drawdown, its all you remember. A statement such as I never get lucky, makes total sense when bad luck is all you see. In that moment, you truly believe that you never experience good luck, something that happens primarily because youre so bad at recognizing it.