Reducing Unnecessary PA Watching ✍️ PA watching is often very unnecessary. It is useful around the levels where you plan to enter a position and where you scale out, but everything in between is usually the heroin variant. Looking at PA just to see if you are earning money or losing money. Every quick move in your favor gives you an instant boost of dopamine and every little move against you makes you want to watch the chart until it once again moves in your favor. It's the same way scrolling or ciggies tickle your brain. We still have a monkey brain that loves these quick little dopamine hits. What makes this even worse is that MMs know how to play into these emotions. Most people have very similar emotional reactions to certain PA and MMs can use these predictable reactions to their advantage by pushing price into liquidity and triggering fear or FOMO. The market is almost designed to keep you in this heroin state. There is not such a simple solution to this. Some hurdles have simple answers and can be solved in days/weeks. I think this problem stays with you your entire trading life as this is the basis for the markets. So many problems come together when trying to figure this one out. First of all, you want to be a trader, that's the end goal. You feel very good when that identity gets reinforced with positive results, but when the opposite happens your identity gets attacked. You start doubting yourself as a trader even though all that happened is one trade not going your way. This process of identity being reinforced and attacked can quickly wear you out if untreated. It's emotionally very, very taxing to think this way and it will make your brain so cluttered it can't see proper reality anymore. Another part of this is the illusion of control. By constantly watching PA you feel like you have some kind of control over your position, while in reality you're not changing anything. The longer you watch the more chances you give yourself to get emotional over moves that might not even matter. You might end up changing a perfectly fine setup just because some candles made you uncomfortable. Nothing in your actual analysis has changed. There are some ways to try to fix this: First imagine what it would look like to have this issue mostly solved: A clean mind, less FOMO, more confidence in your setups and a life where trading doesn't use up your entire brain so it leaves some energy and emotions in there to actually enjoy life! This is what you want and this is what you have to remember every day. You want the journey to be bright and fun, not dreadful and dark. Reinforce this thought and imagine your end goal. You also have to understand that the result of one trade says very little about how good you are as a trader. You can have a great setup and still lose money, or make a terrible decision and end up winning. That's just how probabilities work. Stick to your own system and only take trades you really trust. Sketchy trades are addictive because the outcome is even more unpredictable and makes you want to watch PA even more. With your best setups BCS shouldn't even come as a surprise and an SL hit is just one loss over many trades. Try to judge yourself on how well you execute your setups over many trades instead. A simple technical fix is to ask yourself whenever you look at PA if what you're doing is actually useful, or if you're just using a drug in the form of silly candles. Set alerts for every important part of your chart. Confirmations, entries, TP levels, invalidations etc. You have now defined where it is necessary to check PA and possibly take action. Everywhere in between is just you getting your fix. If you are still looking at PA even though you have your alerts set, get out into the real world and try to do things that keep your mind off trading. Do your favorite hobby, follow some kind of passion, talk to real people or just sit on a bench in nature. You gotta put your brain into a different environment, one outside of trading. And while you're out enjoying life, the market will let you know when it needs a little bit of your attention again. I think this is something you will always struggle with to some extent. There will always be moments where you want to check how your position is doing even though there is no reason to. You just have to become more aware of when this happens and slowly get better at not giving in to that urge every single time. And remember why you're doing all of this in the first place. You want trading to improve your life, not have it take over your entire life. There is a lot more to enjoy than watching candles move up and down all day.

BNB Long 2D 2x < 4W into 9D He’s right though, prop just not right now

Hope allows you to experience the future in the present ✍️ You can become emotionally attached to profits you haven't even made yet. Hope is useful when it motivates you to take action. But once you are in a position and start imagining how reaching BCS will feel it can give you a dopamine rush. You already start imagining how good you will feel with those profits added to your portfolio. After the initial excitement goes away again and price starts moving against your position you might start experiencing fear. When price eventually hits your trailing SL you might feel as if you've lost even though your portfolio has actually grown. Your emotions signal that something bad happened while objectively you've made a gain. (see picture) Hope can however turn into an actual loss because it can make you unwilling to exit at all. You might hold onto a position longer than you should and turn a profitable trade into a losing one. This is because closing the position means giving up the imagined future you've already become attached to. Hope is powerful but you have to understand its weaknesses. As with any emotion you need to understand how it affects you and your objective results.