Hi everyone & thanks in advance for reading,

I, like a lot of people on here, opened a brokerage account once lockdown started turning into cabin fever. I've been into finance for a while, but am quite anxious about losing money, and so I've only contributed $4500 since I started trading ($2500 last June & another $2k in Dec). I've been able to turn that into $11.5k as of writing, but I still feel as though I'm not performing as well as I could.

The way I do things in terms of risk is in an interesting place; when I go in on something, it's exclusively throwing my whole portfolio at a single stock and watching it like a hawk. However, I've never overheld/sold passed the peak. What typically happens for me, is that I'll take a 15-20% return (usually on the same day or 1-2 days after going in) and think "this is absurd, there's no way this keeps up" and hop out. I spend a good deal of time on Reddit forums, so I've traded things like PLTR, WKHS, yes GME, & now APHA. I can articulate why, for example, APHA is still a good hold & should continue to climb until the merger with TLRY/there's a huge arbitrage gap, but I consistently cut out once I've made a gain...only to get back in with a higher cost basis.

I like to think that I'm reducing my downside potential by paper-handing everything (I often leave a trade if the stock drops ~3-5% from my buy-in), but I'm also massively diminishing upside as well (ex held GME through most of 45-130 & never went back). Are there any mental tricks or techniques you guys would recommend to help me bite the bullet and commit to trades? I suppose I could set a stop loss each day, but beyond this, is it just forcing myself to not look at my phone & believing in the thesis?

Thanks a bunch for any guidance!