a daily kill switch saved me more than any indicator ever did

i see a lot of posts on here about blowing up accounts. gets me thinking about my first couple of years.

i had a decent strategy. i could find good setups. but my P&L curve looked like a heart attack. i'd make money for three days and then give it all back, plus more, on the fourth day.

i thought i needed a better indicator, a more complex entry model, whatever. i spent hundreds of hours backtesting stuff that didnt matter.

the real problem wasn't my strategy. it was that i had no "off" switch.

now my rules are painfully simple and have nothing to do with charts:

– if i lose two trades in a row, i'm done for the day. doesnt matter if the perfect setup appears 10 minutes later. i walk away.

– if my account is down 2% for the day, i'm done. hard stop.

– if i hit my daily profit target (which is modest), i'm also done. this was the hardest one to follow (still is sometimes).

i just close the terminal. doesnt matter what im trading. i log out of the bydfi app on my phone and i go do something else.

it feels like leaving money on the table some days. it's boring. but im not blowing up accounts anymore. and i'm still here. that's the difference.