Confession of the Day: How Greed Cut My Win in Half

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I was done for the day. At least, I swore I was.

By 8:00 a.m., I was up $2,500. Five winning trades. A clean, structured morning. Everything was aligned — discipline, setup, execution. It was exactly how a funded trader should operate: hit your number, walk away, live to trade another day.

And then the devil whispered: “One more.”

The setup looked perfect — a textbook continuation. I wasn’t trading for structure anymore. I was trading for glory. And in two quick trades, the market reminded me that glory is expensive.

$1,050 gone.

Just like that, my day’s win was chopped in half.

 
What Really Happened
Here’s the brutal truth of today’s session:

📈 Total profit before I broke discipline: $2,412.50
📉 Total losses chasing “just one more”: –$1,050
💸 Net result: $1,297.22
The first half of the morning was textbook: I sized correctly, held patiently, and let the setups play out. My best trade of the day — a +$1,025 long — was pure structure: patient entry, strong momentum follow-through, clean exit.

The second half was ego: I ignored my rule to stop trading when I’m up more than $2,000. I rationalized “just one more.” And predictably, I gave back almost half my day’s work.

 
What This Teaches (Again)
This isn’t a story about losing money — it’s a story about losing control.

Every prop trader learns this lesson the hard way: most of your bad trades don’t come from bad setups — they come from good setups entered with the wrong state of mind.

When I was up $2,500, I had nothing to prove. My edge had already paid out. The only reason I clicked again was greed — and greed never cares about structure, expectancy, or risk/reward. Greed only asks, “How much more?” — and then takes it back.

 
The Hard Rule I’m Re-Writing Tonight
Here’s the new line I’m etching into my trading commandments:

“When I’m up $2,000, the day is over — even if the next candle screams opportunity.”
Not “probably over.” Not “unless it looks good.” Over. Because the goal is not to extract every dollar — it’s to consistently extract enough dollars without self-destructing.

That’s the heart of house-money trading: get paid, step back, and let the bot — or the next day — do the heavy lifting.

 
Final Reflection
Trading isn’t about mastering the market. It’s about mastering yourself.

Today, I didn’t. Today, I let “one more trade” cut my win in half. But tomorrow, this page will sit taped above my screens — a confession turned into a guardrail. And when the devil whispers again, I’ll smile and close the platform.

Because the real profit isn’t the $2,500.
It’s the discipline that lets you keep it.

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