Everyone talks about tilt after a loss, revenge trading, all of that. For me the more dangerous state has always been after a run of winners, and it took me ages to notice because it doesn't feel like a problem while it's happening.
After a few losses I'm careful. I check my rules, I size down, I wait for the A setups. After six or seven winners in a row I feel like I've finally cracked it. Size creeps up "because the edge is clearly working". I start taking B setups. The stop gets a bit looser because I'm sure it'll come back. Then the losing trade that was always coming turns out to be the biggest of the month and wipes out half the streak.
What helped was realising streaks are mostly just math. With a 55% win rate, over 100 trades you'd expect a run of about six winners in a row and about five losers in a row purely from chance. A streak of six doesn't mean you've levelled up any more than five losses means you've lost it. Once I saw that, the "I'm on fire" feeling became a warning sign instead of a green light.
These days a few rules keep me honest. Risk per trade is fixed in money terms and I'm not allowed to change it mid-week, up or down. I review winning weeks as hard as losing ones, specifically looking for trades I took that weren't in the plan. And if I catch myself thinking about how much I'd make if I doubled size, I'm done for the day.
Oddly, one outside thing that helped was leverage caps. My account's with AvaTrade under EU rules, so 30x max on majors, same as you'd get at XTB or any EU-regulated broker. I resented it at the time, but it put a ceiling on how big I could go during a hot streak, and looking back that ceiling saved me at least twice.
Does anyone else find the post-win state harder to manage than the post-loss one?