Why start with a process
An evaluation rewards the trader who doesn’t break rules, not the one who goes fastest. New prop accounts are usually lost to the same few habits: too much size, a stop moved further away, a trade taken to win back a loss, a good day pushed too far. This gameplan builds the opposite habits first, on one micro contract, before money and deadlines add pressure.
How it works
- Practice first, theory second. You place your first trade on Day 2, and each concept comes when you need it.
- 15 to 30 minutes of mission a day, plus your trading session on market days.
- On paper, start on a Monday; in Sweep, the plan starts the day you begin it. Fridays end with your weekly recap, weekends are for replay and prep, Sunday is a light day.
- One market, one window, one setup: MES or MNQ, the same trading window, one starter setup.
- Every mission has a “Done when”, and every month ends with a gate about process, not profit. You move forward when your process is ready, not when the calendar says so.
Pick your track
- Track A, simulation: you haven’t bought an evaluation. You do everything in sim, and an evaluation only becomes an option in Month 3.
- Track B, already in an evaluation: the same missions on your account, with 1 micro, the same guardrails, and no new evaluation or reset.
What you need
- A platform with a simulator and a replay mode, or your evaluation account.
- One micro contract: MES or MNQ.
- A journal: a notebook with our free templates, or Sweep.
- Your firm’s official rules, or the rules of the evaluation you’d buy (see our prop firm pages).
The three gates
| Month 1 gate | Every session journaled, 90% of trades matching the setup, no trade over planned risk, the last 5 sessions without a major slip. |
|---|---|
| Month 2 gate | Every trade tagged, 25 trades and 60 setups logged, one change backed by your data, an average process score of 4 or more. |
| Final gate | Size changed by the ladder only, the evaluation (if any) traded by the plan, your funded playbook and your one-page trading plan written. |