Which of your problems are not psychological at all?

Why this matters. This domain exists, and it is over-applied. A problem mistaken for a psychological one gets treated with resolve, which is the one thing that cannot fix it.

Three courses have given you names for things that happen to your judgement. The risk of a vocabulary is that everything starts looking like it.

Four things that are not psychology

No edge. If an approach has no advantage, executing it flawlessly produces losses flawlessly. Michael Mauboussin's framing — separate skill from luck with measurable proxies rather than outcomes — is the tool here, and it is a question about the method, not about you.

Costs. Spreads, fees, financing and slippage subtract regardless of state of mind. An approach that is unprofitable after costs is an arithmetic problem, and arithmetic belongs to Risk management.

Size. A position large enough to make sleep difficult produces impaired decisions in anyone. That is not a weakness being revealed; it is a sizing input set wrongly, and it is adjustable in a way that temperament is not.

Circumstances. Money needed soon cannot be invested on a long horizon, whatever anyone's composure. A horizon mismatch presents exactly like poor discipline and is not.

Why the mistake is so common

Because the psychological reading is always available — there is always a feeling present, and a feeling can be blamed. And because it is flattering in a specific way: a discipline problem implies the method was sound.

The order to check in

Costs first, because they are arithmetic. Then size, then circumstances, then edge. Psychology last — not because it is least important, but because the other four are cheaper to check and far more often the answer.

The artefact

A four-line check before reaching for anything in this domain: does it survive costs, is the size right, do the circumstances fit, is there reason to believe there is an edge.

If any of those is no, that is the problem. This domain applies to what is left.

Try it now

Take a current difficulty and run the four lines in order. Notice which one you wanted to skip.