Progress can be sluggish, imperceptible in the short run. It is only when one looks back upon their previous selves that the leaps become observable. This summer I embarked on my annual trek to the in-laws who live in southern California. From a trading perspective, Lady Fortuna smiled upon me. My positions flourished despite my inattentiveness, which is a rarity. My portfolio has a history of rebellion during vacations which made this most recent episode a treat.

The length of the drive (10 hours) coupled with days of downtime provides a refreshing opportunity to catch-up on my book reading. Or, in this case, re-reading. Three tomes accompanied me this go around: Nassim Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness, Mark Douglas’ Trading in the Zone, and Garret Gunderson’s Killing Sacred Cows. All ignited my curiosity and gave me plenty to stew on.

While digesting Fooled by Randomness, I was reminded of an exercise I’ve always engaged in when reading new books – the underlining (and researching) of new vocabulary terms. Aside from the obvious benefit of expanding my storytelling capabilities, it also leaves a trail of evidence detailing my growth. Virtually every chapter in Taleb’s book has a word or two marked. These are words, mind you, that I was surprised were underlined because I forgot I didn’t know them at one time. Which, when I think about it, sounds silly – I didn’t know every single word I use at some point!

I appreciate writers who strike the right balance between using overly simple language and bludgeoning me with a thesaurus. Fooled by Randomness is an excellent example of a read that properly threaded the needle. Antifragile, on the other hand, is one I found entirely too complex. Its targeted audience seemed to be PhD toting academics. Most of its meaning was couched in language beyond my ability to grasp. But perhaps I’m a dum-dum.

Progress with trading can be viewed likewise. In the first few innings, it’s a game of two steps forward, two steps back. Unfortunately, this water-treading can often persist into the middle innings as well. When immersed in the day-to-day back and forth, your progress as a trader can appear nonexistent. But it’s there. Pretty soon the two steps back turn into 1.9 steps back. And then, 1.8 steps back. Before long, the game turns into a business with two steps forward, one step back.

Like underlining unknown vocabulary terms to chronicle the gradual melting away of my ignorance, I can use a trade journal to provide proof of my growth. If you view your performance trade-by-trade, the progress is often imperceptible. But as you zoom out and start to consider things in blocks of 30 or 50 or 100 trades, your improvement will be made manifest.

This is where the equity curve provided in the ultra-handy Tackle Trading Trade Journal can help. It automatically draws an equity curve to give a visual tracking of your trade results. Suppose this is what your equity curve looks like over around ten trades:

It appears you’re floundering; stuck on a merry-go-round to nowhere. Perhaps you should just quit. Toss the system in the trash with all the other disappointing could-have-beens.

Or maybe you should chill out and stop reading so much into the short run. Here’s a zoomed out view of the same equity curve over 314 trades:

A couple of things to note. First, I had to live through the orange box to get to the end. Had I called it quits out of frustration over the choppy performance, I wouldn’t have gotten the gains that were eventually delivered by the system.

Second, the existence of this equity curve is what gives me the confidence to persist. My desire to quit after a losing trade is more than offset by the knowledge that my performance is in a long-term uptrend.

Finally, if you want to learn more about my usage of trade journals, see here.