TRADING PLAN — THE TEMPLATE.

You have read fifty-nine lessons. You know what a pip is, how structure works, where stops go, why R beats pips, and what a broker actually does between your click and your fill. None of it holds together until it is written in one document. This is that document.

What a plan actually is

A trading plan is not a strategy description. It is not a list of indicators. It is not a document that tells you the market is going up. A trading plan is the eight-part answer to the question "what do I do today?" — written in advance, when you were calm.

Here is the working definition. A trading plan is a written document that specifies:

• What you are trying to achieve — your objectives, in measurable terms.
• What you trade — the specific markets, and the ones you do not touch.
• When you trade — the sessions, timeframes and review cadence.
• Your setups — the exact conditions that trigger an entry.
• Your risk — per-trade, per-day, per-drawdown limits.
• Your management — what happens between entry and exit.
• Your review — how you check whether any of this is working.
• Your contingencies — what you do when it is not.

That is the whole document. Eight sections. One page. Written once, revisited monthly, revised quarterly. The plan does not change when the market changes. It changes when the data changes.

The distinction matters because most beginners write the wrong document. They write a forecast dressed as a plan — "EUR/USD is bullish above 1.0850, I will buy dips." That is not a plan. That is a bias with a page number. A plan does not contain views on the market. It contains rules for interacting with any market.

The eight sections

Read the colours. The plan is not eight independent pieces. The blue sections define the context you trade in. The gold sections define the trade itself. The purple section is the loop that tells you whether the trade is working. The red section is the escape hatch.

If any colour is missing, the plan leaks. A plan without contingencies collapses on the first real drawdown. A plan without review drifts silently for months. A plan without markets is not a plan — it is a hobby.

Sections 1–3 — who, what, when

Section 1 — Objectives

Objectives are not "make money." They are the measurable targets that determine whether the plan is working. Three numbers: target return, time horizon, and expectancy goal.

• Target return. Not a fantasy. A number you have reason to believe is achievable given your account size, risk per trade, and strategy. 10% per year on a small account with 1% risk is a reasonable target. 10% per month is not.
• Time horizon. The period over which you will evaluate the plan. Quarterly is the minimum. Monthly is too short. Yearly is too slow to iterate.
• Expectancy goal. The average R-multiple you expect per trade. +0.20R is a good target for a beginner. +0.50R is very strong. If you are not sure what expectancy is, see Lesson 48.

Write the numbers down. Undefined objectives are unfalsifiable. If you cannot say "the plan is working if I hit X by Y," you cannot tell whether the plan is working. You will just feel like it is or it isn't, which is not the same thing.

Section 2 — Markets

The market list defines what you trade and, more importantly, what you refuse to trade. A short list is a competitive advantage. Two to four instruments is enough for a beginner. One to two is fine.

Two rules for this section:

• Every instrument on the list should have a reason. "I trade EUR/USD because it has the tightest spread and cleanest structure on the H4" is a reason. "I trade everything" is not.
• Every instrument NOT on the list should also have a reason. "I do not trade exotics because the spreads are 4× wider and the sessions are unpredictable" is a reason. Without explicit exclusions, you will drift into trading anything that looks interesting on any given day.

The market list is what keeps the plan small enough to execute. A plan that covers 20 markets does not get executed on any of them.

Section 3 — Timeframes

This section decides when you look at what. Sessions, timeframes and pre-market routine.

• Sessions. Which sessions you trade. London only. London and New York overlap. Not the Asian session. Not rollover.
• Timeframes. Which timeframes you use for structure, for entry, and for management. Daily for trend, H4 for structure, H1 for entry.
• Pre-market routine. What you do before the session. 15 minutes at 7:00 London time. Check the calendar. Mark zones on the six-pair watchlist. Write the plan for the day.

The pre-market routine is the section that separates a plan from a wish. Decisions made before the market opens are more objective than decisions made during it. If your routine takes 15 minutes and produces a written watchlist, your in-session decisions become fill-in-the-blank.

Sections 4–5 — setups and risk

Section 4 — Setups

This is the section most traders think is the whole plan. It is not. It is one of eight, and it is only the trigger.

A setup has three parts:

• Context. The structural condition that has to be true. Daily trend is up. Price has pulled back into a support zone. H4 structure is intact.
• Trigger. The specific event that fires the entry. H1 bullish engulfing candle closes above the zone. Or: a break of structure on the H1 in the direction of the daily trend.
• Invalidation. The condition that means the setup is off. Price closes below the zone on the H1. Or: daily structure breaks the other way.

Write the setup in the exact words you would use to describe it to another trader. If you cannot describe it in one sentence, you do not have a setup — you have a feeling.

Section 5 — Risk

Three numbers. Fixed. Non-negotiable.

These are not suggestions. They are the section that keeps the plan survivable. A plan without risk limits is a plan that assumes it will never be wrong — which is a plan that has not met the market yet.

Sections 6–7 — management and review

Section 6 — Management

This section was covered in full in Lesson 56. The plan section is the one-line summary of that lesson's four rules:

• Stop. Where it goes, and the only three reasons to move it. Structural change. Risk reduction. Planned trailing.
• Target. First target, second target if you scale. 2R, then trail the remainder. Or: full exit at 2R.
• Management triggers. The exact conditions that justify intervention. Close 50% at 1R. Move to break-even only if the daily closes above X.
• What you never do. The prohibitions. Never widen the stop. Never move to break-even at 1R alone. Never add to a loser.

The prohibitions are as important as the permissions. A plan that only tells you what to do is half a plan. The other half tells you what not to do under pressure.

Section 7 — Review

The review section decides how the plan stays alive. Four cadences, each with a specific purpose.

The quarterly decision is the important one. It is the only moment when the plan can change. Not after a losing week. Not after three losers in a row. Quarterly. This is the anchor that stops the plan from being rewritten every time you lose.

Section 8 — contingencies

This is the section everyone skips. It decides what you do when the plan is not working. Not if — when.

Three contingencies to write down explicitly:

Notice the structure of each contingency. A trigger, a response, and a reference to the lesson that explains the details. The plan does not need to contain the full protocol — it needs to contain the pointer to the protocol. When the trigger fires, you look up the section and follow it.

This is why the plan stays one page. Every rule that would take a paragraph lives in the lesson, not the plan. The plan is the index.

Worked example — plan vs no plan

Two traders, same strategy, same markets, same account size. One has a written plan. One does not. Here is what happens over 200 trades.

Read the two lines again. Same strategy. Same markets. Same account size. Same instrument. Same trigger. The only difference is the plan.

Where did the extra $6,280 come from? Three places:

• Discipline on risk. Trader A occasionally risks 2% — those bigger losers drag the average loser from 1.0R to 1.15R. That single number is worth ~0.09R per trade, or $1,800 over 200 trades.
• Discipline on management. Trader A moves stops when trades go against him. That conversion from a clean 1R stop to a 1.15R average loss is the same mechanism — and it also clips winners, because he takes profits too early when nervous.
• Discipline on selection. Trader B takes every valid signal. Trader A skips setups he does not "like." Skips are not free — they are the same as rejecting a random sample of your edge.

The plan is not magic. It is the mechanism that makes the same strategy produce the same results twice. Without it, every trade is a fresh improvisation and the improvements never compound.

When this fails