Re-post portions of two March 2012 posts describing how comfortable it was to accept losses...

-from March 28, 2012:

"I picked the right time of the day to work with TNA considering my goal to put up losing trades in order to learn to accept losses." 

"Oddly, I felt very much at ease when my goal was not to win, but rather to lose. I can't help but wonder if that feeling is because I may have designed an exercise that really didn't test my fear because there was no expectation of winning when I placed the trade. That's how wierd it felt to have a trade on and not feel anxious about the outcome. It bears repeating: I'm not sure if the test was helpful or not because I am not sure I cared enough about trying to win! I have to continue this exercise for a number of days to see if I have found a way to trade without emotional discomfort or if I have set up a test where lack of concern about the eventual goal of winning trades has been abandoned. All I know is that it was a joy to click the mouse , stop out for small losses and react to it with the same concern as putting on a belt or walking through the frozen foods section at the supermarket."

"Takeaway:

I must continue with this expect-to-lose exercise until I can get my head around the odd (lack of) feelings it generated yesterday. I have to figure out if my lack of concern is a breakthrough as to how to mentally approach live trading or if the absence of anxiety is more about being emotionally removed from the trades I'm placing such that it is only about clicking a mouse and not placing and managing actual risk. I think time will yield the explanation."


-from March 29, 2012:

"Looking at the bright side:

1. I stopped out each trade faithfully which is the whole point of this exercise I am involved in.

2. My stop outs were in areas where my read of trend/momentum change was pretty good. It needs refinement... maybe some patience. I also MUST trade with trend as my first impulse as opposed to trading for reversals. My first two stops of the day would have been avoided had I done this. This is a perenial problem of mine.

Overall, I am happy with today. I am not joyful like yesterday, but I met my goal of exiting only by hitting stops or getting out in the last 15 mins of the session."