Profits are never just profits.

Much like losses, profits can have a HUGE psychological impact on how you trade.

This is your introduction to Good & Bad Profits: seeing profits on your MT5 screen for what they really are — as in many cases… it’s not all as it seems.

Let’s dive deeper.

When you close a position “in the blue” (green for the CTrader folks) – of course, you’ve just successfully added to your balance. Hooray, right?

The problem is not all profits are made equally.

Profits are great when you trade responsibly, following your plan and managing risk. But when you deviate from this path… you start to set in motion a dangerous cycle.

Bad profits are the junk food of trading — at first, it’s sweet to the senses, but sustained exposure to those treats ultimately leaves you wondering where it all went wrong...

It’s the same in trading — that dopamine hit of winning an overleveraged trade, or successfully revenging trading… eventually, it’s coming back to bite you in your ass.

The worst part is that the ‘high’ sensation you get when winning a bad trade mentally screws you over. Your brain starts to attach positive outcomes to negative habits, similar to how a cigarette gives you a sense of calm. But long term? Those cigarettes destroy lungs & those bad profits wreck accounts.

The first step in preventing bad profits & ultimately bad habits is this one great fundamental — “plan your trade, trade your plan.”

Sticking to your rules & remaining disciplined isn’t supposed to be sexy, it isn’t supposed to be exciting — but what it will do —  is make you profitable as a trader.

What you should really be asking yourself is: why did I even make a plan in the first place?

Let’s say you decide to go against your trading rules.

Now you’ve spawned the beginning of a vicious cycle; bad profits (the blue $$$ tricks your psychology into thinking this a reliable strategy) cause you to repeat those same actions where you lack patience, forming bad habits… And in a flash, your healthy account & humble projections turn into a shipwreck. You’re devastated, your mental state at a complete low..

Avoid this.

Avoid this trap with every dollar you can spare.

Take it from us, we’ve been there and done it — it’s not worth it.

Good Profits

So, “what do good profits look like and how do I go about acquiring profits in the RIGHT manner?” you may ask.

It’s simple.

Good trading should be boring. Robotic. It shouldn’t feel like you’re doing anything new.

Why?

Because you’re doing the SAME things over and over again — and getting consistent results.

Sometimes you take Ls. Minor. You don’t sweat it because consistency has not only taught – but ingrained — in your mind that’s it’s all part of the process. Small Ls, small Ws, and on a good day — massive Ws.

Steady account growth. No massive peaks and dips. Just a gradual upward incline to greatness.

You can also think about it in this way (with also being representative of the ENTIRE trading experience) — there’s a TON of ways to trade poorly and lose capital in the markets, but there are only a HANDFUL of ways to trade responsibly and generate profits from the markets.

This is routinely the manner in which we execute on the livestreams. For beginners, we recommend sticking to the following profit principles:

• 0-2 trades per session
• generally trade 0-2 sessions per day (New York & Asian). A lot of beginners mess up on no trade days. This is a patience problem.
• Not taking take more than 4 positions in a day (very rare for us to even take 4 positions in a day)

As you become more experienced, you’ll be able to get loose with rules in your strategy, such as not taking more than 4 positions in a day — this is because you will have developed your understanding of QUALITY in positions vs QUANTITY in positions. Rookies will want to take every setup they see, whereas the experienced know well when to hold back and when to take advantage in times of increased volume.

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