J -- IMO the pivot of your improvements was where you said you were paying less attention to the money. There were a lot of moving parts to your 2 week experience... and it was really cool the way you set that up RN... liked your homework; to me not thinking about the money was one result.
Listening to you talk so far this week J, it's always coming back to the money and points each day.
I know it sounds dumb, but consider setting it up that you can't see the points made or lost during the day -- and for sure make that you can't see it EOD. Wait for the weekend.
For the longest time I took the P&L off during the day, but we all can kept score close enough in our head for the day. When I stopped looking EOD, it took about 2 days for me to lose track; and all at once all kinds of mental energy and emotions lifted. I came to realize I had nothing left to do but trade the plan. It was even relaxing and i could be a craftsman with it.
For me that was the key to switching between the 2 people in you that Handle talks about; to being the craftsman applying the plan as opposed to the business owner who makes the plan and is responsible for the profits.
I did the above exercise in part finally because one of the good guys and experienced traders said that he only checked his P&L quarterly. Otherwise his emotions interfered with his trading and he implied he had a cycle like you describe for yourself. Only quarterly seems a little much, but I have come to understand what he is saying. You might give a week a try.
I've heard people say to stick something on their screen physically... a post it note. My platform allows me to make copies of my windows, and the copies don't have the P&L on them. So when I open my platform in the morning the first window has the P&L; I can avoid looking at it until I minimize that window and then use my copies to trade from... so i have no chance of seeing it the rest of the day. Works for me. Do whatever it takes.
A second exercise...
Something in the way you describe your "follow-through" trade management itches.
Linda Raschke in her video "understanding trade management"
at the very start she says if you run a hundred trades with random entries but use "by plan" trade management you have positive expectancy. If you run a hundred trades with "by plan" entries but use random exits (trade management) the system implodes.
Hey! We can test that for our trade management. So you might as an exercise over the weekend -- it should take about an hour or even less to see if the idea works -- use your back testing replay and go to a series of random points in the market. At each random place (entry) know you will initiate a long or short as your judgement best says and then apply your trade management and see what it takes to make those random entries profitable.
I
thought I knew what my trade management was before I did that the first time. My trade management was much clearer afterwards.
If your trade management gives you positive expectancy even with random entries... what would that do for your confidence? Or for your willingness to follow your trade management plan? Or for being relaxed and focused after a planned entry?
Homework...
. But I can't disagree. You're the best RN ,thanks.