Building a personal trading plan document

A strategy tells you how to take a trade. A trading plan tells you how to run your trading. It covers everything around the strategy: why you trade, how much you can lose, when you trade, how you prepare, how you record and review, and what you do when things go wrong. Professional traders work within a plan whether they write it themselves or their firm writes it for them. As an independent trader, the plan is yours to write — and it's the document that keeps you consistent on the days when your emotions would rather not be.

What you'll learn

• The difference between a strategy and a trading plan
• The sections every trading plan needs
• How to set realistic goals and hard risk limits
• Daily, weekly, and monthly routines
• A complete template you can fill in today

1. Strategy vs plan

2. What goes in a trading plan

1. Purpose and goals — why you trade, and what you're working toward
2. Markets and strategies — what you trade and which written strategies you use
3. Risk limits — per trade, per day, per week, maximum drawdown
4. Schedule — when you trade and when you don't
5. Routines — preparation before, review after
6. Journaling — what you record for every trade
7. Review process — weekly and monthly
8. Personal rules — behaviour and mindset
9. Contingencies — technology failures, emergencies, drawdowns
10. Development — what you're learning next

3. Setting goals that help

Profit targets like "make 10% a month" tend to backfire: they pressure you into forcing trades and oversizing when you're behind.

Better goals are process goals — things you fully control:

Outcome goals are fine for the long term — as long as the day-to-day focus stays on process.

4. Risk limits: your circuit breakers

These limits protect you from yourself on your worst days. Write them as hard rules (see Risk-per-trade concept):

5. Routines

Pre-session (15 minutes)

• Check the economic calendar (see Reading the economic calendar)
• Review higher-timeframe structure and levels for each market
• Note any open positions and their plans
• Quick self-check: rested, focused, not emotional?

During the session

• Only take trades that pass the pre-trade checklist (see Pre-trade checklist habit)
• Log each trade immediately

Post-session (10 minutes)

• Complete the journal
• Screenshot every trade at entry and exit
• One line: what went well, what to improve

Weekly (30–60 minutes)

• Review all trades: rule-following rate, results in R, mistakes
• Plan key events and levels for the next week

Monthly

• Performance statistics: win rate, average win and loss in R, expectancy, maximum drawdown (Module 3.4)
• Decide if anything in the plan needs to change — with evidence

6. The template

Copy this into a document and fill in every section. Keep it where you trade.

TRADING PLAN — [Your name] — Version [1.0] — [Date]

1. PURPOSE & GOALS
   Why I trade:
   12-month process goal:
   12-month outcome goal (long-term only):

2. MARKETS & STRATEGIES
   Markets:
   Strategy documents (name + version):
   Timeframes:

3. RISK LIMITS
   Risk per trade:            %
   Maximum open risk:         %
   Daily loss limit:          %   → action:
   Weekly loss limit:         %   → action:
   Max drawdown from peak:    %   → action:

4. SCHEDULE
   Trading hours (my time zone):
   No-trade times (news, rollover, Fridays…):
   Days I will not trade:

5. ROUTINES
   Pre-session:
   Post-session:
   Weekly review day/time:
   Monthly review date:

6. JOURNAL FIELDS (every trade)
   Date/time · market · direction · strategy + version · setup screenshot
   Entry · stop · target · size · risk ($ and %)
   Exit · result (R and $) · checklist passed? (Y/N)
   Emotions before/during/after · mistakes · lesson

7. PERSONAL RULES
   - I never move a stop further away.
   - I never trade to "win back" a loss.
   - I stop after [2] consecutive rule-breaking trades.
   -

8. CONTINGENCIES
   Platform/internet failure:
   Broker contact details:
   Illness, travel, emotional events:

9. DEVELOPMENT
   Current learning focus:
   Next milestone:

7. Keeping the plan alive

• Reread it before each trading week.
• Update it only during scheduled reviews — never mid-session.
• Version it like your strategies: note what changed and why.

Common beginner mistakes

• Confusing a strategy with a plan — having entry rules but no limits, routines, or reviews.
• Setting monthly profit targets that encourage forcing trades.
• Risk limits without actions — knowing the limit but not what to do when it's hit.
• Writing the plan once and never reading it again.
• Changing the plan in the middle of a bad day.

Key terms

Practice

1. Fill in the template completely, including actions for every risk limit.
2. Replace any profit targets with process goals.
3. Schedule your weekly and monthly reviews in your calendar.
4. Read the whole plan before each of your next five trading sessions.

Quick recap

• A strategy handles trades; a plan handles your trading.
• Every plan needs goals, markets and strategies, risk limits with actions, schedule, routines, journaling, reviews, personal rules, contingencies, and development.
• Prefer process goals over profit targets.
• Risk limits are circuit breakers — non-negotiable during trading hours.
• Reread the plan often; change it only in scheduled reviews.