So here's what nobody's talking about. Everyone on YouTube is selling you the dream of passing a challenge. They're obsessed with the 'how to pass prop firm challenge' question. But they never tell you what happens the Monday morning after you get your funded account credentials. The euphoria is gone. And it's replaced by a quiet terror. I know because I blew my first three funded accounts in under a month each. The skills that got me through the door were the very same ones that got me kicked out.

Passing a challenge is pure offense. You have a clear target (usually 8% or 10%) and a deadline. You're rewarded for calculated aggression. Your brain gets wired for that hunt. But the second you go live, the game flips entirely to defense. Your job is no longer to 'make 8%.' Your new job is to 'not lose 5%.' It's a massive psychological shift that most traders aren't ready for. I wasn't. I got my first $100k FTMO account and immediately started hunting for that 8% monthly gain again, because that's what I was used to. I was down 3% in two days and on tilt. It was a disaster.

This is where you have to move from a sprint to a marathon mindset. You're not trying to impress anyone anymore. As my colleague Emma Blackwood often points out in her analyses, sustainable growth always beats explosive, risky moves. Your goal is to be so boringly consistent that the firm barely notices you're there, and the payouts just appear every month. If you're looking for an FTMO challenge strategy, the best one is to start trading like you're already funded from day one of the challenge.

Forget your P&L target. The only number that matters on a funded account is your daily drawdown limit. That's your new boss. It dictates everything. Before I even look at a chart, I open my spreadsheet and calculate my *exact* maximum loss for the day in dollars. On a $100,000 account with a 5% daily drawdown, that's $5,000. But that's not my number. My personal hard-stop is half of that. I won't risk more than 2.5% ($2,500) in a single day, period. If I hit that, I shut it down. No exceptions. The platform can stay open; I walk away.

• Calculate max daily loss in dollars (e.g., $2,500).
• Set max risk per trade (I use 0.5% of account balance, so $500 on a $100k account).
• Determine max number of trades for the day (For me, it's 3 losses and I'm done).
• Check the news. Am I willing to risk my daily budget on an NFP day? (Usually not).

This isn't just one of my prop firm challenge tips; it's my survival guide. You follow a rigid, mechanical process to protect you from your own emotions. Even when Viktor Reyes posts a killer setup on Gold that I love, I'm still only risking my standard 0.5%. The opportunity may be great, but my account's survival is more important.

The pressure to get to your first payout is immense. You feel like the account isn't 'real' until you've got cash in your bank. This causes traders to force trades and over-leverage right before their payout date. It's self-sabotage. Here's my rule: my only goal for the first month on any new funded account is to be profitable by 1%. That's it. On a $100k account, that's a $1,000 profit. After the 80/20 split, that's an $800 payout. It's not life-changing money. But you know what it is? It's proof. It proves the system works. It proves they pay. It instantly relieves the psychological pressure, and from that point on, you can trade freely.

The firm isn't looking for a hero. They have millions in capital; they don't need your 10% monthly gain. They're looking for a consistent, low-risk trader whose signals they can scale across their entire capital pool. Be that trader. Be boring. Get paid. So I'll ask you: what's the one psychological rule you broke that cost you a funded account?

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