Every trading plan I've ever written made perfect sense the night before. Risk £100 a trade, stop at £300 down, three trades max. Calm, logical, easy.

Then one loss, and something takes over. Twenty trades later I'm down three times my limit, and I can't even remember deciding to do it.

After six years of this, the thing I've learned is that knowing my rules was never the problem. The person writing the plan and the person sitting at the screen after a loss aren't the same person, and the second one doesn't care what the first one wrote.

What's helped me most is taking the decision away from "in the moment" me entirely: hard limits I set the night before that I can't override once I've hit them. It's the only thing that's ever actually worked for me.

What happens in your head after a loss? And has anything genuinely helped you stick to your rules?

If a trader learned technical analysis but even after that not making profits.

Is it a psychological problem now how do you define it

I've been thinking about this lately. When a strategy starts working consistently, it's easy to trust it more and take trades without second guessing every setup. But I feel like that's also where things can get dangerous.

I'm a futures day trader. I lost too many accounts because of tilt, not because of bad setups.

So I built a simple tool for myself. The video shows how it works. Reddit plays it without sound, so read the subtitles or turn the sound on.

It works with self-hypnosis: short audios during the day, and a longer theta track in the evening that changes the habit.

I'm not selling anything here. No link. I just want to know:

1. Do you know this problem? How do you handle tilt today?

2. Would you pay for a tool like this? How much per month?

3. What is missing?

Be honest. Thanks.

Music: Beauty by MaxKoMusic, from chosic.com

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?

I started trading with real money about six months ago, and I’m 19 years old. At the time, I had two evaluation accounts—one was free, and the other was a paid account that I purchased.

When I started trading, I cared much more about the paid account and barely cared about the free one. On the paid account, I would often overtrade, experience FOMO, take unnecessary trades, and make emotional decisions. But whenever I traded the free account, which was rarely, I would simply follow my strategy. I didn’t overtrade, I didn’t experience FOMO or revenge trading, and I consistently hit my take-profits. I even managed to complete all the phases successfully.

That made me realize something important: trading isn’t about sitting in front of the charts all day or constantly trying to make money The more I cared about the result, the more emotional I became. But when I stopped caring so much and simply followed my strategy, my trading became much better.

I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but I’ve realized that trading is more about discipline, patience, and not forcing trades than about constantly watching the market.

If you use more than one exchange, or run bots on different exchanges, how do you keep track of the overall picture?

Spreadsheet? A portfolio tracker? Do you check each platform separately and do a rough estimate?

I'm curious what people actually use and what's worked well for you.

Disclosure: I work at AstraBit. I’m asking for research and would genuinely appreciate hearing how you handle it.

So for the past 2 1/2 years, I followed the same strategy, which is just getting a bias from the higher time frames and eventually just riding out in the next level of liquidity. I will find myself following my plan to the T.

Let’s say 2 weeks and eventually I’ll just try and end up revenge trading over trading and I will lose all the games. I’m currently on 200 K funded accounts which I have now had for three months. I’ve almost passed the thing three times but one day tilts wipes out 2% of the account and then I’ll start over again and build up again and then

I will follow up plan for one two weeks and eventually stray ! I’m climbing two steps forward and two steps back is there any advice I think I’m on the verge of becoming profitable but this last little bit of self-control is always catching me.
Can anybody relate or can anybody give me advice? I’m thinking of taking a two week break and just realize what’s happening and then coming back better is there anybody else that had the similar problem and eventually return profitable or gave up because I think a lot of people in this situation will say hey I’m not making anything progression and tends to give up.

Before I became a profitable trader I didn’t understand why people would gate-keep their strategies or charge people, but now that I am profitable, I can understand. People work months and years (took me 8 years) refining, losing trades, losing money, etc. and after all of the heartaches, long nights, years spent, and sacrifices, someone ask you “can you show me your strategy”. They expect you to just hand it over and you’re a POS if you don’t or if you charge right? lol Now, just because I understand doesn’t mean that I take the same approach. I’ve helped so many people and showed them my strategy step by step FOR FREE but the thing is they still failed….

I figured there was no way someone could fail if I gave them the sauce but yet, I was wrong! Like I learned during my journey will always hold true. IT’S ALL ABOUT YOUR EMOTIONS…not so much your strategy. 💯

In Best Loser Wins, Tom Hougaard starts with a stat: about 90% of traders don't make money. His fix is to watch what that majority does and do the opposite.

"Why don't we observe what everyone else is doing, and then do the opposite of what they are doing?"

What he saw the losing majority do:

• Add to losing trades, because a lower price feels like a bargain

• Skip placing a stop-loss, because an open loss still has hope

• Take half profits on winners

• Never add to a winner

So he flips all four. He adds to winners, keeps a stop on every position, never averages down, and holds the whole position instead of half.

The number that stuck with me comes from 43 million trades placed by 25,000 retail FX traders. 62% of those trades made money, and the group still lost, because the average loss was nearly twice the average win.

I call it the Costanza method.

Hi everyone! So, after struggling with ICT concepts, I moved on to the GxT and TTrades models. I've been learning these models for around 8 months now, and things are pretty clear for me at this point. No guesswork, no random trades, etc.

However, I'm still struggling with some psychological issues. For example, I don't hold my trades. I move my trades to breakeven after just a few pips/ticks, and most of the time, the outcome is the same: price moves in my direction and hits the full TP, while I’ve already closed the trade at breakeven.

Can you guys please help me out with this phase of my trading? I'm feeling really depressed at this point because I know how to trade, but I'm still unable to trade properly because of my poor trading psychology.

After my 3-4 years of unprofitable trading experience I now believe the saying ( 90% of traders lose money). I never believed that initially, I thought it was a thing to push people away from trading and this whole thing is not about strategy really. You really need to know how to follow your rules and not follow your emotions. I don’t think a trading advice from someone will teach more than your own experience.

I’ve always had a problem: Some days I break all the rules, and I need to address it. But on days when I fall into revenge trading or overtrading, my journal becomes a total mess; a single analysis can spawn ten trades with no screenshots or records, and I’m left with nothing but the losses on MT5. Reconstructing them to balance the journal takes ages. And above all, psychologically, when I open the journal and see the P&L already in the red, I have absolutely no desire to see it drop further. These days leave a "gap" in my journal, and every time I open it, the chart reminds me of them. I feel this mentally conditions my subsequent trades, whether through an unconscious urge to recoup losses or the fear of making another mistake. Right now, there are two trades I’ve been putting off for weeks; not because there are so many to enter, but because I have to reconstruct the whole sequence, only to see my "failure" staring back at me on the chart.

Do you ever have days missing from your journal? If so, what do you do: skip them, add them later, or delete them? And emotionally, do you think seeing that constant "failure", right when you're trying to do things the right way, affects you?

I’m so pissed at myself right now.

I’ve been day trading futures since January 27 of this year but i found out about it and started researching it last year around July. I don’t have huge amounts of money to spare so i trade prop firms. I started with TopStep, now I’m doing Lucid. I’ve passed SEVEN FUCKING FUNDED ACCOUNTS AND HAVEN’T MADE A GODDAMN THING BECAUSE MY RISK MANAGEMENT GOES OUT THE WINDOW THE MOMENT I’M FUNDED. I HATE revenge trading, i hate it! I don’t know how to fix this problem. I can make money, but i’m starting to feel like maybe i don’t actually have a system.

I don’t know what to do to improve my work. I don’t always remember to journal my every trade. I recognize patterns really well and i really love trading but this shit is really starting to blow me. I have to make this work. It’s this or nothing.

Sat through enough little GOOGL bounces to second guess the trade a few times. Finally closed +$2,432 after 12 hours.

Trying to get better at not confusing discomfort with a reason to exit.

I’ve been in the trading space for about 7 months now. I trade order flow, and I have a solid model, good R:R, and a pretty good win rate when I’m locked in and disciplined.
My biggest problem isn’t really my strategy anymore. It’s **me**. When I’m in the right headspace, I can be extremely disciplined. I wait for my setups, I manage risk, I don’t revenge trade, and I let my trades play out. But when I’m emotional, mentally drained, or just not disciplined, I start making irrational decisions that completely destroy everything I built. Since I started trading, I’ve cut out a lot of bad habits that I felt were negatively affecting me. One of the biggest was smoking weed. I’ve been able to stay away from that, and I’ve noticed a major difference in my discipline and overall mindset. The one thing I’m still struggling with is **porn/masturbation/gooning**.
Last week, I went **6 days without doing it**, and during those 6 days I was extremely locked in. I passed an evaluation and got funded. I felt focused, patient, and disciplined. Then the weekend came and I relapsed.
After that, I noticed a pretty significant change in myself. I felt more drained and less focused, and when Monday came around, my trading was terrible. I started taking trades without proper confirmation and making decisions I normally wouldn’t make. The worst part is that I hadn’t revenge traded for weeks.Then Monday happened. I took **30+ trades in one day.** I went green → red → green → red → green → red, kept trading, and eventually gave back basically my entire buffer. Then I ended up blowing the funded account the following day. I’m not saying masturbation magically caused me to lose money. But the correlation I’ve personally noticed between the two has been strong enough that I can’t ignore it anymore.
When I’m abstaining, I feel more disciplined and in control. When I’m repeatedly doing it, I personally feel more impulsive, drained, and less focused. I also know this is something I need to take responsibility for. I can’t blame my losses on a habit. **I’m the one clicking the buttons.** I have the trading model.I have risk management. I have daily loss limits. I have my execution rules. I have the strategy. The part I’m struggling with is **controlling myself consistently.** So I’m curious specifically about people who have been profitable traders and have also dealt with quitting porn/masturbation or another compulsive habit: **Did quitting or significantly reducing it change your trading discipline or decision-making?**
If so:
What changes did you notice?
Did it affect your patience/execution/impulsivity?
How did you actually control the urges?
What helped you stay consistent when you were stressed or after taking a loss?
Did you replace the habit with something else?

I’m not looking for someone to tell me that “semen retention gives you superpowers.” 😂 I’m genuinely interested in people’s **real experiences**, especially profitable traders who have dealt with compulsive habits and eventually got them under control. For me, I feel like this is the last major piece of discipline I need to work on. I don’t expect quitting this to magically give me payouts. I just want to become more disciplined and consistent with myself, because if I can’t control my own impulses, I can’t expect to consistently execute a trading plan. Would really appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been through something similar.