I spent 6 years trying to beat the market. Mostly I just learned how hard that is.

I tracked almost every trade for six years. Around 400 trades and mostly are individual stocks. I beat the S&P 500 in two of those years. The other four were either worse or close enough that the effort didn’t really justify it.

Once I looked at it that way, the whole thing felt kind of ridiculous. I wasn’t just underperforming an index fund and was spending a second part-time job trying to underperform it.

I still hold a few individual names I genuinely believe in long term. But most of my portfolio went into VTI and VXUS last year, and I’ve barely touched it.

The funny thing is I enjoy markets more now. I can read about companies or macro stuff without feeling like every opinion needs to become a stock trader. If I have a specific view on a specific event, I’d rather keep it small and separate there than pretend every market opinion belongs in my long-term portfolio.

Does anyone else make this shift? From trying to beat the market to just admitting the index is probably the main plan?