I traded stock index futures from 1994-1997 on a discretionary seat-of-the pants basis. I did not have any money management principles in place and I allowed a small loss to turn into a huge loss and blow up my account. After being out of the market for several years, I decided that if I were to trade again, I would on trade on a rule-based basis, start with small positions and only add to the position if it is going my way and have a stop level for every position I take BEFORE I enter the position. When the contract trades at my stop level, I exit my position EVERY TIME. My goal is to have it so that the rules for my system can be debated but there should never be any question as to whether I'm going to follow my own rules. My goal is to follow the rules 100% of the time. I just placed my first trade on Monday. So far I'm following my rules 100%. I'm only in the 4th day and I've been tempted to break my rules. Monday started with 4 losing trades: BOT 1 ES 1334.25, SOLD 1 ES 1328.25, BOT 1 NQ 1802.25, SOLD 1 NQ 1794.50, BOT 1 NQ 1802.25, SOLD 1 NQ 1794.25, BOT 1 NQ 1810, SOLD 1 NQ 1802.25. After that day, I thought maybe I should change my buy and sell signals but I didn't and I was able to follow my rules. On Tuesday, I BOT 1 ES 1332. Which I am still long. Psychologically, it felt great to finally have a winning trade after 4 losers. But I'm trying to temper my emotions and just follow my rules. If ES goes up enough, I'll add to my long position. If ES goes down enough, I'll close out my long position and go flat for a little while. Of course, success in the long term will be determined by your P/L, but in the short-term I'm trying to measure success by how well I'm following my own rules. Rules can be changed between positions, but never during a position. Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from Bad judgment. I look at following the rules all the time to be tough, but I paradoxically I don't try to follow the rules all the time, I just try to follow the rules this one time, right now and worry about the future later.