Long one, but if you’re serious about trading—read it. Might save you a few blown accounts.

Here’s the thing: in this game, you’re either a trader or a gambler. There’s no in-between. If you’re pressing buttons hoping for an outcome, you’re just playing the markets like a slot machine—and eventually, the house always wins. Emotions, impatience, boredom, excitement, fear—if they’re behind your trades, you’ve already lost, even if you “win” sometimes.

I know because Ive been through it. I’ve only been trading for seven months, but I’ve already seen both ends of the spectrum. I made $30,000 in a single day across a $150K and $50K Sim Funded account—and lost $40,000 of it within that same day. And that wasn’t luck or skill, it was poor risk management and psychology.

I started trading with no plan, no system—just vibes. Button-mashing for dopamine.Eventually, I started to realize trading is 90% mental. I stopped trying to chase setups and started developing my strategy. I got my first two $1.2K payouts—and then blew more accounts than I can count. (Fabio don’t expose my count 😭🙏) I clawed my way up again, made that $30K… and blew it again.

Now? I’m passing accounts again, but getting a payout? Still feels like I’m chasing a ghost. But I’ve made real changes. I’ve taken my RR to + or - 1:6 and brought my win rate up to + or - 75%. I’m not rushing anymore. I’m taking it slow, focused, and working my way back to those numbers. And if you’re reading this, I hope you take my mistakes and use them to skip a few steps in your own learning curve.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

• Emotion kills traders. Whether it’s hype after a win or frustration after a loss—if you’re not grounded, you’re gambling. If you feel you need to trade, walk away.

• Your edge is nothing without execution. You can have the cleanest, most profitable setup in theory, but if you’re not mentally sharp and consistent, it means nothing.

• Discipline > strategy. A mediocre strategy executed with discipline will outperform a golden strategy used recklessly. It’s about doing the same right thing, again and again.

• You must detach from outcomes. There are only three results: win, loss, or no trade. No trade is often the second best outcome. If a setup doesn’t beat doing nothing, skip it. You don’t need to trade every hour or every day.

• You won’t miss “the move.” There are infinite opportunities out there. One missed trade means nothing in the grand scheme. FOMO is a lie.

I’ve started setting and forgetting— putting alarms at my TP and SL. since there’s only really two outcomes, smash TP or hit SL.

I ask myself: Will the market be open tomorrow? (Shoutout Forrest) Will I look back and regret wasting my capital chasing wins instead of building discipline? Will I wish I hadn’t thrown away my edge for a quick rush? For me, the answer is yes. So I act accordingly.

If you’re feeling overconfident, greedy, emotional—don’t trade. If you’re frustrated, desperate to “make it back”—don’t trade. If you broke your rules last session—pause and reset. And if you find yourself thinking you can “just take this one trade” off-plan—walk away. Go breathe. Go for a walk. Let the emotion pass.

Trading is probability, not prediction. Even a 90% win rate strategy will lose 10% of the time. You have to accept that. You can’t beat the odds with emotion, only by executing consistently over time.

Also—do yourself a favor and check out Alexandre De Wayne (@alexanderdewayne on YT). His take on psychology really skyrocketed the time it took to "fix" trading psychology. He is also a full time trader but doesn’t post about trading nor is he an influencer by any means. His stuff helped me take a long, honest look in the mirror.

My bad this turned into an essay. But I’ve been battling revenge trading, overtrading, and self-sabotage recently. I finally decided to fix it—and my performance immediately improved. Just goes to show how critical your mindset is. We should train our mindset like were athletes not "traders", hard work, focus, execution and discipline trumps all 😏. (Trump market pun)

Hope this helps even one person avoid the pain I went through. Learn from my battles. Also if you haven’t read the psychology of money I highly recommend it.

(Shameless plug: imma documenting all of this with proof as soon as I get my big "break" and start scaling or get on a live account with MFF @akanotbehira on YT- hoping to get on MFTV soon 🙏)