So yesterday I had a -$1000 red day that was comprised of 10-12 trades which meant I needed to make changes.

I managed to cut my losses very quickly but unfortunately the death I experienced was from a thousand cuts, not by one savage swing of the trade blade.

That obviously led me to (in reflection) look at where I lost the most money and it happened to be in the first 30 minutes of the trading day.

On top of that I thought to myself "how the fuck can I NEVER lose $1,000 in a day again? or $500? or $200?"

So I made changes.... 

Now today I also had a red day of $-25 coming from 5 trades on the day. Obviously much better and I actually got better today as a trader. So what happened?

The first thing I did was hit up my broker and tell them to liquidate my position and lock my account for the rest of the trading day if my unrealized p/l ever hit -$150.

This takes out the option for me to even THINK about trading more after that is hit.

The other habit I set for myself was to not trade the first 30 minutes of the trading day. That allows the stocks im watching to develop setups with defined risk and defined profit targets.

But how do you enforce that? Especially when you can be a degenerate like me who has discipline issues?

I made three note cards with the habits that I wanted to exercise and put them in places where I would constantly be reminded of them!

Literally as I open my laptop at 6:35 this morning to get ready to trade I read the note card STARING at me in the face telling me not to take my first trade until 7AM.

So I didn't.

And I am sure it saved me ottles of noodles in cash.

Just to clarify I will not remove these UNTIL they become apart of me as a trader. I don't give a shit if anybody see's these notes cards and thinks I'm weird, I don't care if im picking up a girl to go on a date that I met at the bar the previous week. 

I'm keeping these in sight at all times UNTIL they make a difference in my trading. Period.

So that's my plan to start changing my habits, it worked today and if I focus on them, as they will be in plain sight all the time, then they will "work" tomorrow as well.

I'll be doing a monthly recap by the end of June just to recap my habits and trades. 

I have been trading now for 17 months and haven't had a green month yet so hopefully this will be the first :)

Thanks!