Success and failure often go hand in hand, regardless of the activity you may be engaging in. For this reason, psychologists and coaches alike often highlight the importance of keeping track of performance, whether positive or negative, to maintain a clear picture of your progress and the key areas where you need to improve in order to boost your chance of success in the future. 

This approach is particularly effective in academic and professional environments. 

For example, a financial trader that keeps good track of their investments and trades is more likely to see the cracks in their strategy and make the necessary adjustments to boost performance and increase returns for the long run. 

For this reason, many traders resort to using a trading journal, which is basically a digital diary where each winning and losing trade are logged so that the trader can see a progression over a period of time - where they performed well and where they acted in a fearful way, or overextended due to excess confidence. 

 The Pros of keeping track of your achievements and failures

Being mindful of your performance and progress can help you in more ways than one. It gives you a realistic baseline of how to evaluate yourself and what success even means for you in a given situation. 

Journaling and generally keeping track of what you do can help in several key areas, such as:

• Emotional balance - journaling can be a great way to reduce stress and maintain a sense of control over a particular situation. Trading, in particular, can be a stressful experience and journaling can help manage emotions like greed, anxiety, fear, etc
• Realistic goals and expectations - 
• Identifying patterns - journaling can help you decide where the weak points of your strategy are, which gives you the opportunity to make the necessary adjustments to boost performance and progress in the long run 
• Discipline - journaling can be a part of a disciplined routine, which also helps maintain consistency and boost performance. 

Analyzing your achievements and failures

Journaling and keeping track is not the be all and end all of success, as the recorded information requires analysis to infer appropriate responses from the data you have collected. 

Once you have a sufficient amount of data to work with, there are several actionable directions you can take to make the most of your journaling efforts.

Establish a sense of progression

Mapping out your wins and losses can create a sense of progression, as it allows you to clearly visualize periods when you had a successful stint, as well as where and why it ended.

When it comes to trading, the number of consecutive profitable trading days show what you had been doing right up until the point when you incurred the first loss. 

The end result is likely to resemble a map that you can follow to see the specific points where your performance dipped. After this, you can come up with strategies to fix the issue or adjust your approach.

Identify areas that might need improvement

Finding the pressure points that require adjustments is essential in making lasting change. For this reason, it is vital to carefully review your data and decide where you could improve.

For example, if you are a financial trader, there are a few questions you can ask yourself to find out where you could make adjustments:

• Are your returns below your expectations? How realistic are your objectives when compared to long-term market returns?
• Do you struggle with stress and find it difficult to get your mind off of an unsuccessful trade?
• What has the track record of your trading strategy been like so far?

Answering these questions can help you get closer to the root of your problem and identify the core issues that stand in the way of you achieving success and progressing further. 

For example, if trading is too stressful for you at times, make sure to find a way to relieve some tension and focus on other areas of your daily life. If the issue lies in the trading strategy of your choice, make sure to start looking for alternative indicators and test them out to see how they work. 

Create an action plan 

Once you have identified the key areas in which you could improve your performance, the next logical step is to have an actionable plan that explains what and how you will go about making the necessary adjustments to improve your results.

If we use the example of trading once again, it would be beneficial to figure out which indicators or technical tools would best help you to improve your strategy. You could choose to set aside a small amount of capital to experiment with multiple different strategies, or use a demo account with simulated funds to try out something different from your usual strategy to see how or if your returns improve.