Most Traders Don’t Have an Edge Problem — Action Addiction

I once deliberately stopped trading for an entire month. I experienced an intense pain unlike anything I had felt before. That pain made me realize that I had unknowingly developed an addiction similar to gambling. When I returned to trading, my mind felt as if it had been completely reset; my decisions were much clearer and sharper. I couldn’t believe it. My body carried far less stress, and my quality of life improved noticeably.
We have all heard a classic phrase in the trading world countless times:
“Don’t trade when you’re in a bad mood.”
However, this approach has always felt overly superficial to me, because it focuses not on the root of the problem, but only on the visible outcome. In trading, the right mindset is not about avoiding problems, but about building a mental structure based on solid foundations.
The truth is that in the 21st century, we are all dopamine addicts in one way or another. Our minds are conditioned to constant stimulation, action, and instant feedback. The trading screen feeds this need perfectly:
charts, movement, probabilities, the feeling of “maybe this time”…
Most of the emotional imbalance traders experience does not come from a bad mood, as commonly believed, but from the constant need to take trades. In other words, the problem is this:
A trader doesn’t overtrade because they feel bad.
They start feeling bad because they overtrade.
That’s why saying “I won’t trade when I’m not feeling well” only suppresses the symptom.
Real growth begins when you can consciously choose not to trade during certain periods.
Seeing a setup and not entering…
Knowing you might be right and still waiting…
Sitting in front of the screen and doing absolutely nothing…
This is where real discipline is built.
Because what separates consistently profitable traders in the long run is not better indicators or more information.
The real differentiator is the ability to be at peace with inaction.
If a trader feels restlessness, tension, or even physical discomfort after not trading for a few days or a week, there is a psychological weakness present. That weakness is not a lack of edge — it is action addiction.
Trading is not a game of “doing”; most of the time, it is a game of not doing.
And the irony is this:
The day you stop feeling forced to take a trade is the day you truly start becoming a trader.


A person’s ability to be profitable in trading is directly related to how quickly they can overcome this addiction. For those struggling with it, I want to offer a clear piece of advice:
During a period when your urge to trade is very strong, spend one full week only observing the charts and taking no trades at all. There will be something very powerful for you to learn there. After repeating this for a few months, you will notice that you can trade calmly, according to plan, and without desperation — driven not by impulses, but by clarity.

-Kd

This is one of the most underrated truths in trading psychology. People obsess over entries, indicators, and setups, but the real battle is with the compulsion to act. The market is basically a dopamine machine- every tick is a micro‑hit, every candle is a slot pull. That’s why most traders don’t blow up because of bad analysis, they blow up because they can’t stop clicking.

Your point about 'don’t trade when you’re in a bad mood' being superficial is spot on. Mood is the symptom, not the cause. The root problem is action addiction. Overtrading creates the bad mood, not the other way around. And until you face that, you’re just treating headaches with aspirin instead of fixing the dehydration.

The reset you described after a month off- that’s the proof. When you strip away the constant stimulation, your brain recalibrates. Suddenly you can see setups with clarity instead of desperation. That’s discipline in its purest form: being comfortable with not trading.

The irony is that the best traders aren’t the ones who 'do more.' They’re the ones who can sit through boredom, watch opportunity pass, and still stay aligned with their plan. That’s the real edge.

Your advice to spend a week just observing charts is gold. It’s painful at first, but it rewires the brain. You stop chasing trades for the dopamine hit and start waiting for trades that actually fit your system. That shift- from impulse to clarity- is what separates pros from gamblers.

I can't agree more.

a good read if you have time

absolutly

I think trading for sake money is probably the worst decision you can take in life ....trading or any other work in world pays your hard work or your efforts not how you feel about the work .......that gets us to the point that your feelings don't matter its how you act on those feelings...as humans you can't be emotion less its not how we work but like for me the profitablitly was achived by taking the risk ...if one can take risk they are better off then 90% of other people cuz most can't even pull the trigger without the depending on someone else to confirm their thinking ....once you have basic knowldge and your winning then i think there is no bad thing in trading MORE but the best thing that i have done was to TRADE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE to GENERATE experience (essentialy backtesting ) and then doing as less as possible to generate money thats the ultimate meta I guess .........and trading is really an addiction and a good one too

Love this write up mate,I came into the trading industry two years ago,and I must say I have learnt patience on my own,I did lost lot of money at the beginning but like i always say "those losses were my school fees in the market".
I got my first payout after that I blew my two prop firm account and I became humble,I had to sit down and check what was the problem,I later noticed that I left my main pairs that I understood and started trading gold,now gold does really respect market structure a lot of move like normal currency pairs,so I took a lot of false signals and I was liquidated twice..when i discovered it,I had to delete gold from my trading pairs and I must that was the best decision I ever took,my edges work on basically all currency pairs and I stick to my rules.but the truth about it is that the level of patience you need in the market is crazy.