Have you ever seen someone stare at candlestick charts without blinking, only for their account balance to keep dropping in the end?

Last year, I met a delivery guy, Brother Zhang, in his early thirties. In just four days, he lost 48,000 yuan. Later, he told me his hands were shaking so much he could barely hold the mouse.

“When it drops, I want to run; when it rises, I’m afraid of a pullback.” That’s how he described himself at the time.

I’ve seen this problem a lot. Later, I talked to him about the rhythm control methods I’ve developed over the years. After about half a year, he managed to grow his remaining 7,000 or so back up to over 80,000.

**Let’s start with capital allocation**

Brother Zhang used to always think, “I’ll make it back in this round,” but the more anxious he got, the worse things went. I suggested he split his money into six parts, only ever using up to one part at a time—about 17% of his total funds.

Once he started doing this, he realized that losing 900 yuan the first time was still bearable, and when he made 700 the next time, he didn’t get overconfident. Gradually, he found his rhythm.

**Next, let’s talk about holding positions**

He used to have a habit of liquidating everything and waiting on the sidelines. As a result, when last year’s bull run started, he didn’t have a single coin in his account. By the time he wanted to get in, the market had already jumped nearly 30%.

I told him to always keep at least a quarter in an observation position. Now, when he sees a golden cross pattern on BTC’s hourly chart, he tries with about 8% of his funds—this way, he doesn’t miss out, but he’s not overexposed either.

**Finally, position pressure testing**

This method is pretty simple: if you’re lying in bed at night and a single push notification wakes you up in a panic, your position size is definitely too high.

Now, Brother Zhang keeps his positions between 45% and 55%. If the price drops 9%, it hurts but doesn’t make him want to smash things; if it rises 18%, he’s happy but not impulsive enough to quit his job. Even those wild 15-minute wicks while monitoring the market no longer send his blood pressure soaring.

Some people might think this is passive? On the contrary—

Shifting your focus from “how to recover losses” to “how to play the next trade” is the real offensive mindset.

Now, when Brother Zhang reviews his trades, he only records “what was right about this decision,” not dwelling on “where I lost last time.” His strategy execution is getting more precise. Last month, using half his capital with stop-loss strategies, he grew his 48,000 principal to 97,000.

The market is still the same, the coins haven’t changed, but he’s gone from being one of the ones getting rekt to a seasoned trader who understands the rhythm.

One last thing: don’t treat trading as a do-or-die battle—think of it as a ranking game. Once your rank goes up, profits are just the trophies you pick up along the way.