How do I pass my eval without blowing it in week one?
I’ve failed a few prop firm evals now, and reviewing them has made one pattern pretty obvious: my strategy is not the problem. My decision making changes because I know I’m trading an evaluation.
I always start with the intention of following my plan, but after taking a loss, I sometimes get frustrated and increase my position because I want to recover faster. Instead of accepting one red trade, I turn it into a much larger drawdown and put the entire evaluation under pressure.
Then, when I finally get close to the profit target, I have the complete opposite issue. I become overly cautious and start second guessing everything. I hesitate on setups I'd normally take without thinking, close winners too early because I don't want to give anything back, or force trades because I just want to get the evaluation over with.
So I seem to struggle with two different problems - early in the eval & near the target
I can execute it just fine on demo or even outside an evaluation, but as soon as I know there's a profit target and consistency rule to meet, I start putting unnecessary pressure on myself.
At this point, it feels like I'm competing against my own emotions more than the market.
For those of you who've passed multiple prop firm evaluations, what actually helped you break that cycle?
It will help a lot to hear from people who've been in the same position.