The Hockey Stick Growth Curve of Trading

Climbing the Curve: The Road to Elite Trading

Why the Path to Elite Trading Is Non-Linear

In trading, progress is rarely linear. Most traders, myself included, begin with high expectations, drawn to the potential of freedom, precision, and performance. But trading quickly proves itself as one of the most difficult endeavours to master. It doesn’t just test your strategy, it tests your patience, discipline, emotions and identity.

Over time, I’ve come to learn that real growth in trading resembles the hockey stick curve. The early stages are flat and frustrating, where effort feels unrewarded. But beneath that surface lies foundational development, until one day, things begin to align. Execution improves. Mindset sharpens. Strategy matures. And results, finally, start to compound.

This isn’t theory. It’s a lived process. What follows is a breakdown of that curve, not from the perspective of someone who has conquered it, but from someone who is committed to climbing it.

Becoming an elite-level trader and sustaining that level of performance is, in my view, the ultimate pinnacle of this profession.

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The Four Stages of Trading Growth

Stage 1: Tinkering – Learning and Frustration

This is the longest and most psychologically difficult stage. For most, including myself, it begins with ambition and curiosity, followed by an extended period of disorientation. Trades are inconsistent. Risk is mismanaged. Confidence swings wildly. The market humbles you repeatedly.

At this stage, emotional volatility runs high. Frustration, self-doubt, and impatience are common. You question your capability. You chase strategies. You treat losses emotionally and wins like validation. The edge, if it exists, is buried under noise.

What it looks like:

• Constant strategy switching

• Emotional execution and overtrading

• Inconsistent sizing

• Little to no journalling

• Attaching identity to short-term outcomes

What moves you forward: The turning point comes when you accept that performance doesn’t come from chasing results, but from building structure, a manual, a process. Once you start journalling, reviewing, simplifying, and becoming more self-aware, the foundation for real growth begins to form.

The Hockey Stick Principles, Flatiron Books

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Stage 2: The Blade Years – Internal Alignment

This phase is less dramatic but more meaningful. The chaos begins to settle. You define your process. You become selective with trades. You execute fewer but higher quality setups. Mistakes still happen, but you spot them quickly and adjust. You begin trading your system, not your emotions.

Emotionally, this stage is marked by greater self-control. You stop reacting to wins and losses. You start showing up with intention. You still experience frustration, but it may come from missed opportunities or poor execution and at times breaking risk limits, not from not knowing what to do, but making mistakes that arent part of the process and going on Tilt.

What it looks like:

• A focused playbook with well-defined setups

• Fewer impulsive trades

• Structured journalling and reviews

• Clear risk parameters

• Pre-market routines and post-trade analysis

• A work in progress - not ready to scale up yet.

What moves you forward: Consistency. You reinforce good habits, track performance patterns, and refine your edge over time. You embrace boredom. You stop looking for excitement and start managing expectations. Progress becomes methodical.

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Stage 3: The Inflection - Breakthrough Performance

At this stage, the execution becomes sharper. You are no longer guessing or hoping. Your entries are planned. Your exits are defined. Risk is controlled. Emotions are managed. The equity curve begins to slope upward, not in a straight line, but with more consistency and stability.

The key psychological shift here is trust. You trust your process. You no longer need to feel right to take a trade. You focus on execution quality, not the outcome of any single position. Discipline starts to feel normal. The market no longer feels overwhelming.

What it looks like:

• Clean, repeatable execution

• Clear alignment between market conditions and setup triggers

• Strategic use of size when conviction is high

• Post-trade reviews that refine edge and execution

• Fewer mistakes, faster recovery from drawdowns

What moves you forward: This is where you begin to operate like a professional. You manage mental capital. You track metrics. You know when to step back. You stop doing more and start doing better. To push into the next stage, you need to scale discipline alongside size without disrupting execution.

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Stage 4: Surging Growth - Acceleration and Compounding

This is where elite traders operate, the best of the best.

Here, performance becomes scalable. Risk is sized with precision. Capital is preserved and deployed strategically. Your decision-making is fast but grounded. Your edge is executed with consistency across varying market conditions.

This is not just about bigger returns, it is about sustainability. You’ve developed the tools to operate efficiently under pressure. You are not emotionally tied to outcome. Drawdowns are controlled and viewed through the lens of risk-adjusted expectancy.

What it looks like:

• Multi-month performance with low variance

• Strategic scaling of risk and capital deployment

• Deep internalisation of edge

• Fast execution without emotional distortion

• Confidence rooted in process, not recent results

How to remain here: You maintain edge integrity. You review at a higher level. You evolve without overcomplicating. You protect your mindset in the same way you protect capital. At this stage, small mistakes are corrected quickly, and large ones are rare.

This is the level I strive to operate in and as any human, I will have my own battles and lapses. But I know what it requires. And I am building towards it daily.

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Why Trading Growth Is Non-linear

Trading doesn’t reward surface-level effort. It rewards sustained depth.

You can spend months, even years, stuck in the blade of the curve, wondering if anything will ever change. What appears stagnant is often compounding below the surface, experience, discipline, resilience, mental fortitude. Then one day, with enough repetition and refinement of your process, it clicks.

Breakthroughs come from:

• Mastering the core set of edges

• Internalising risk control and execution

• Building emotional stability

• Maintaining data-driven feedback loops

• Knowing when not to trade

Trading growth is never accidental. It is earned through structure, patience, and self-awareness.

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The Common Traps That Stall Progress

There are several recurring traps that tend to stall the development of aspiring traders. The first is strategy-hopping. Continuously jumping between systems prevents the creation of any meaningful feedback loop, making it impossible to refine execution or build conviction.

Overleveraging is another major pitfall. Taking on too much size not only leads to financial losses, but also creates emotional strain that distorts decision-making.

Ignoring journalling is equally damaging. Without reviewing your trades, you lose the opportunity to identify mistakes, repeat strengths, or evolve your process based on actual performance data.

Obsessing over PnL often leads to short-term thinking. When your focus shifts from execution quality to immediate results, emotional reactions dominate and consistency disappears.

Finally, overtrading can quietly erode discipline. Taking too many trades, especially outside of your playbook, dilutes your edge and leads to unnecessary fatigue and mental burnout.

Avoiding these traps requires more than technical knowledge. It demands maturity, accountability, and a genuine commitment to long-term professionalism.

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A Personal Reflection

I’m still tuning my process. I still strive to reach that elite level status by my own standards. But I have clarity on the path forward. I have built a process I trust. I’ve refined my setups. I’ve developed the discipline to sit out when conditions are not aligned.

I’m building consistency, not chasing peaks.

This journey is not about perfection. It is about depth. It is about building a foundation strong enough to handle risk, pressure, and uncertainty. It’s about showing up with clarity every day and being honest enough to course correct when needed.

I’m here to do the work. No shortcuts. No self-deception. Just process, process, process followed by performance, and patience.

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What It Means to Trade at an Elite Level

Trading at an elite level is not about being right more often than wrong or predicting market tops and bottoms. It is about consistency in execution, precision in decision-making, and unwavering control over risk. An elite trader operates with clarity and detachment, focused not on the outcome of any single trade but on the integrity of the process over time. They understand when to step back, when to press, and how to adapt without overreacting. Emotional stability, strategic patience, and rigorous self-review are standard operating tools. Their edge is not just technical, it is behavioural. Elite traders don’t chase performance. They build systems, manage exposure, and let disciplined execution compound over time. Their results are not loud. They are consistent, repeatable, and resilient across varying conditions. This is the standard I am working towards, not short-term outperformance, but long-term professionalism built on process, control, and enduring conviction.

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Closing Thoughts

Wherever you are on this curve, know that the struggle is not unique to you. Every trader who has achieved longevity in this field has passed through the same frustrations, setbacks, and moments of doubt. The difference lies in how they responded.

The hockey stick curve is not a myth. It is a reflection of what happens when commitment meets structure and when effort is directed through a disciplined, focused process. Progress often comes quietly and slowly until one day, it doesn’t.

I’m not writing this as someone who has ‘made it’, but as someone who is deeply committed to getting there and staying there. And if you are too, then stay with the process. Review your work. Sharpen your edge. Take ownership of your decisions. Let the curve do what it always does, for those willing to persist.

In this game, the reward isn’t just the money, it’s becoming the savage who earns it while others get crushed chasing it.