Eliminate fear in the markets.

Trade with money you can afford to lose.

Have a preset strict risk management plan mine is 1% a trade.

Have a plan! Backtest your plan thoroughly with a large sample size (1k trades and up). This will 1 give you a picture as to your expected win rate but also psychologically it will show you how often trades come about so you don’t over trade.

Understand by backtesting how many losing streaks you will have, adjust your risk management so you are not afraid of losing 8 trades in a row. Expect losing streaks. Don’t hope they won’t happen.

Even if I lose 8 trades I risk 1% so I know I just need 3 winning trades to to take me back to being 1% profitable. This does wonders for my psychology and I just let the market do what it does.

Stop trying to have winning trades all the time or rationalise why the market went against you. Measure your success by the mark of how well you followed your plan not the money or wins you make.

Mechanical trading plans really helped me out psychologically. These are plans where there are clear, objective rules. Rules that aren’t a matter of opinion but fact:

e.g “Price is above 200MA therefore look for long”

“Price has crossover over MA in direction of long signal, if entry is so and so many pips from crossover don’t trade it.”

“Don’t trade if a crossover has already occurred in last 10 candles etc.”

I personally aim for 1:3 in every trade. This means every time I lose 6 trades two will put me back up.

After entering a trade make rules to only check on it once every 4 hours – this may vary depending on your strategy and timeframe.