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Not all losses are mistakes. A good loss follows the plan: the setup met every criterion, risk was within the limit, the stop was placed where planned and the exit was executed without hesitation. The market simply did not cooperate.

A bad loss involves a broken rule: an oversized position, a skipped stop, an entry outside the plan.

Separating them in the journal changes the emotional reading of a losing day. A day with five good losses is a normal day in a probabilistic business. A day with one bad loss is a problem to fix.

Over time, the ratio of good to bad losses shows progress. A trader who cuts bad losses to near zero often finds profits appear without any change in strategy.

Reviewing losses with one question in mind, "did the plan allow this?", turns frustration into information.

What share of losses in the journal here counts as good, according to the plan?

Splitting losses this way changed how I look at a red day more than anything else in my journal. I added a simple column that just says plan or broken, and when I first reviewed three months of trades I found that roughly two thirds of my losses were fine. The rest almost all came from the same few habits, mostly entering early before my trigger candle had closed.

The emotional effect was the surprising part. A day with three plan losses used to feel like a disaster. Now I can look at it, see every trade followed the rules, and close the platform without wanting to win it back. A single broken-rule loss bothers me much more, because that's something I actually control.

Over the last couple of months the broken column has shrunk a lot, and my results improved without changing the strategy at all. Asking whether the plan allowed the trade is now the first thing I do after every stop.