I took a 3 day weekend in the mountains and I think I'm beginning to get it. For weeks, I've been saying "*If* I can trade well, I'll be profitable, etc.". The reason for "If" was my knowledge that I surrender to my variable emotional state. I need to take control of it. It should be: "I trade well". But how do you take control of those emotions? I don't think you just get over your problem, you just learn to deal with it and it fades with time. Different people have different ways of overcoming things. eg. Catman responded that your DESIRE has to overcome. You have to want it badly enough. I believe RS7? posted his holy grail a few weeks ago: to think of the money as someone else's. Someone for whom he feels responsible. This worked for RS7 because his emotion/value of responsibility to those he cares about outweighed any self-destructive tendencies he had. Catman's emotion/value of success overcame his problems. This is what I was alluding to with the idea of trading your own emotions. One emotion becomes more valuable than the other. I'm searching for my own emotion/value that will override my gambling/self-destructive tendencies. Any examples? Perhaps it's just desire. I will be taking everyone's advice tomorrow. The P&L is off the screen and my only goal is to trade well.
I used to get pissed. My mind would focus and would make back the loss and then some. This went on for a while, but then, I stopped getting pissed. My emotional capital got used up followed by my account equity.
Finally recognising that trading is a business (not another form of gambling) was a big step forward for me.