From reading some of the posts on this forum, I get a sense that not a lot of them have truly witnessed or actually traded during 2000-2003 or 2008-2010 bear markets. I'm sure most of them will not make it through this bear market. But that's part of the game.
Equally - one can say that those who were conditioned to markets of the past got badly burned trying to short this great bull since it there had to be a crash at some point. How many top calls have there been for these last years?
Most traders seem to have difficulties adjusting and some remain remarkably stubborn in their views. A directional day trader needs to be very flexible and simply trade on the evidence he's using for his analysis and execution.
As for a bear market, I'd say it remains to be seen if this becomes one. I hope so for my own selfish reasons, but even at this point, I'm not convinced we will not find a bottom before or around 20 % down or so.
Remember the fall of 2018. I thought that was it. So did a lot of others.