I subsequently read your follow on posts. They make a point about trading and it's varied possibilities.
If there is a heirarchy of possibilites and it is ranked in order of potential optimum efficiencies, you might want to place yourself in that continuum. Notice that you are not at an extreme place in the continuum. It may be possible that you are not aware of all the components of the spectrum either; I certainly am not. You have chosen a trading approach that is not among the highest potential for extracting capital. Lack of knowledge may be a factor it looks like.
People make choices, as you do too; You choose to trade mechanically and, on weekends, you choose to explore stuff that you will not do to make money. Your strong adverse emotional state regarding these items demonstrates that it is very risky stuff for you.
At this point your level of risk is to be a mechanic (watch and do as you are told). By having this deep and abiding fear of personal risk whose source is a requirement to make decisions based upon info, you get to be "bored". This boredom, you say, detracts from your mechanical efforts.
You make about 20 points an hour on NQ (I don't trade it for many reasons, it's potential rewards being the greatest issue, for me). Maybe, there is room for improvement by considering other alternatives to the method you have perfected.
Some people who gravitate to mechanical approaches,sometimes do so to avoid other factors. Some of those factors can even relate to the person's views and beliefs about himself.
Everyone who posts tells us where he is and where he comes from. Typically, people become who they are and what they are capable of by "growth". Denise, an investor since 1994, has discovered that a person's make up and constitution is important for making money most effectively.
She is focussed on "feelings" during trades. This is unfortunate in the sense of her use of time. A person's ability to make money most effectively does come down to the persons abilities to connect to what the given potential of the market is at any given time. Effective behavior follows from many things and they are not complex. The most demanding process is to get to "empty" to be able to build a comprehensive basis for continuous effective behavior.
It all turns out to be a simultaneous process of emptying and refilling, usually on a one-for-one basis. Priortizing the trade off system is best done by what appears on the table "now". What to you have at present? What do you want instead? Decide to accept what you want and see it replace what you have now.
The feeling that is involved at any time is only one feeling. People feel serially. The hold up for almost all difficulties is not knowing what is desirable.
The problem stems primarily from what you are allowed to choose. All of the beliefs that are causal re behavior have to be stated as positives. If they are not, then they will not precipitate effective behavior.
Fear is the set of beliefs that do not precipitate effective behavior.
To clean house to get ready to make money, dump all the beliefs based on fears.
My fav example:
Don't fall down on the ice.
You have to change this to: Walk carefully on the ice.
Every day, every time a "feeling" comes up that isn't what you want, recognize it, determine what you want (not what is wrong or a negative statement), accept it as your future orientation and move on.
After a 1000 or so of these appear in your journal and logs, you will notice that things are a lot different. Writing a paper to make a list of stuff like this is different and good for getting a grade somwhere. By doing it a 1000 times, on the other hand, you complete a process. It is not learning or things like that. what it is is getting "empty" of stuff that you have acquired already. You often didn't want it either. You got it by failing. You can make time lines and go backto see where you created the current dramas you have running. You made all that stuff up as you went along back then. Now you can intentionally replace every little peice of the mess.
As I read the posts people make I visualize how they got to where they aren't but where they want to be. The crash artists are really great lessons for us all.
