When trading, have you ever experienced this—struggling to hold onto your positions when making money, only taking small profits, but when losing money, you can't stop the losses, watching the negative amounts pour out helplessly?

Such situations of earning little and losing much are especially common among novice traders. Today, let's talk about how to overcome this psychological issue.
First, the reason traders develop this mindset is because beginners tend to be shortsighted—they always focus on the immediate trading results, unwilling to accept failure when losing, and eager to prove their success when profitable. Over time, this habit fosters two bad habits: "holding onto losing positions" and "taking profits early."
However, in reality, a trader's success does not come from one or two trades, but from the overall performance over a month, a year, or even a lifetime.
Humans are creatures who live in the present, making it difficult to evaluate their trading results from a long-term perspective. This makes sustainable profitability hard to achieve for most traders.
To solve this mindset problem, traders must establish a profit-loss ratio mindset—before entering the market to execute a trade, they need to set strict take-profit and stop-loss plans.
Consider the price ranges for take-profit and stop-loss in advance; only if the take-profit range is larger than the stop-loss range can they enter the trade.
As long as each trade maintains a profit-loss ratio greater than 1, and they do not take profits before reaching the take-profit boundary, they can avoid situations of earning little and losing much.
Furthermore, since a 1:1 ratio is the minimum for our profit-loss ratio, what is the most appropriate profit-loss ratio?
Generally speaking, the choice of profit-loss ratio is closely related to the market environment.
In strongly trending, one-sided markets, traders usually choose larger ratios, such as 2:1 or 3:1, while in overall weak market trends, traders tend to use smaller ratios, like 1:1 or 1.5:1.
For example, in my personal trading style, I most often use a 1.5:1 profit-loss ratio.