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When I'm most of the way to the target, the day I almost threw it away

a story that taught me something. I was most of the way to the profit target on an evaluation. A couple more decent days and I'd be through. And what happened is that I started trading differently. I got tighter, took fewer trades, and then took a rushed one because I was impatient to finish.

It lost, and then I took another to get it back, and another. By the end of the day I'd given back a big part of the progress. Nothing dramatic happened in the market. It was entirely my own behaviour, because the finish line made every trade feel heavier.

What I do now is shrink the risk per trade when I'm near the target, not increase it. I only need a small amount more, so there's no reason to take a bigger shot. I also treat the last part of the target as just another normal day and do my usual checklist.

If I'm close and the day isn't giving me a clean setup, I just stop. The target will still be there tomorrow.

Something that helped me with the near the target feeling was hiding the profit figure on my platform while trading. I still know roughly where I am, but I am not staring at the number after every trade. Without it on screen, I trade the setups in front of me rather than thinking about how close I am. I check the total at the end of the session, when it can no longer influence my next decision. It is a small trick but it calmed my trading down a lot.

I also learned to write down a stopping rule for the evaluation before I start. Mine is that once I am within one normal day of the target, I take at most one or two trades a day at reduced size and stop after any loss. Having it written in advance means I do not have to decide in the moment, when I am excited or nervous. It feels slow, but it is a lot better than giving back weeks of work in an afternoon.