Video walkthrough · 22 min
Not recorded in this build — the written walkthrough below is complete.
Lesson 01 of 03 · Free preview
Deconstructing a journal entry
Walk a full setup from thesis to lesson learned, using a repeatable five-part frame.
This lesson gives you a frame you can apply to any entry in the journal, not a tour of one favourite trade. Five passes, in order, and you do not move to the next until the current one is answered from the chart rather than from memory.
Pass one — context. What was the higher-timeframe structure before the idea existed? Mark the swings yourself and write the sequence. If the plan's direction disagrees with the structure you marked, stop there: you have found the most important thing this entry can teach you.
Pass two — trigger. What specific event was the plan waiting for, and on what timeframe was it judged? Find the candle. Ask whether you would have identified it live, or only now that you know where price went afterwards.
Pass three — risk. Where is the invalidation and what is it protecting? Measure entry-to-stop, then compute the size that distance implies at your own risk percentage using the formula from the risk course. Take the XAU/USD entry: zone 2,318 – 2,322, stop 2,309, so roughly 12 dollars of risk from the middle of the zone, with the first target at 2,334 — a little over 1R, and the third at 2,361, around 3.5R.
Pass four — management. What did the plan say would happen at each target before the trade was live? On that XAU/USD entry the log records TP1 and TP2 reached with the stop trailed to breakeven, and a final result of +2.4R against a planned 2.9 R:R. The gap between 2.9 and 2.4 is not an error — it is the arithmetic cost of protecting the position, and it is exactly the trade-off you must decide on in advance rather than mid-trade.
Pass five — the lesson, and this is where losers and cancelled entries earn their place. The AUD/USD entry closed at −1R with the risk capped as planned; the review question is not 'why did it lose' but 'was the plan correct to authorise it'. The USD/JPY entry never triggered and is logged as cancelled; it teaches the value of a trigger that refuses. A journal that only breaks down winners is a highlight reel, and a highlight reel cannot show you your own repeated mistake.
Work at least one won, one lost and one cancelled entry through all five passes before you consider the method learned.