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Scaling up after the pass, why I don't change my risk right away

passing an evaluation feels like a switch flips and everyone wants to start sizing bigger straight away. I did the opposite on purpose, because the evaluation was done under certain conditions and the funded phase is a different psychological game.

My approach is to keep exactly the same risk per trade as in the evaluation for at least a few weeks on the funded account. I want to see if my stats and my behaviour stay the same when the money feels more real. Some people find they trade worse once the pressure of the target is gone, and others trade worse because they're now afraid to lose the account.

If after that period things look the same, I might increase the size a little and check again. And I don't count on payouts when I'm setting my risk. They're nice, but I'd rather the plan work without expecting them.

Also read the scaling plan if the firm has one, since some have criteria like minimum profit and number of trading days before the allowed size goes up.

For those asking how long a few weeks is, I usually wait until I have at least twenty trades on the funded account at the same size. Time on its own does not tell me much if I only took a handful of trades. Twenty or more gives me enough to compare win rate, average loss and how often I broke my own rules against the evaluation period. If those look similar, then I think about a small increase. If they do not, I stay where I am and work out why first.

Something I did not expect after passing was how much the daily drawdown limit started to weigh on me. During the evaluation I was focused on the target, but on the funded account the drawdown felt like the main thing, and I caught myself closing trades early to protect the account. Keeping the same size helped there too. If I had increased risk straight away on top of that fear, I think I would have made a lot of bad decisions.