My goal in trading: Don't lose money. How do I do this? Its a trade by trade procedure. I attempt to use a tight stop. Having a tight stop leads to many consecutive losses which is difficult to handle psychologically. Using and executing a tight preplanned stop order is not always achieved because I am human and do not like losing money which leads to holding onto losses. Like today, I entered long in the MES and had no stop planned. My typical stop in this market is about 4-10 ticks. This trade went against me 25 ticks before recovering to break even where I closed the trade.

Until recently I was trading for pure enjoyment. This goal precipitated a completely different trading plan. I held losses all day and never closed them out. This was fun because I could root for a trade like a sports team and gambling. I now realize this results in poor financial performance and I can not longer afford to trade this way. I am sure every once in a while I will revert to this style of trading for an emotional release but am going to try to work hard to stick to my goals.

Trading to avoid losing money takes hard work, dedication to a plan, and consistency. I am going to take my goal to not lose money seriously and will look for fun elsewhere, not in trading.

Thinking about how my results will realistically look if I have tight stops of 3-6 ticks, move stops to breakeven, and hold winner: There will likely be 15-25 losses, 5-10 break evens, 1 winning trade.

****NOT WORK WITH THIS**** Don't lose money... your mind just follow it. Trading is not to avoid losing money.