Losing money can be endured until liquidation and forced liquidation! Making money but can't hold it for ten minutes?

Have you carefully examined your own trading records?
Losing trades, you hold onto them like treasures. From a floating loss of 5% to 50%, from 50% to liquidation. That kind of “persistence,” even you find it unbelievable.
What about winning trades? As soon as there's a slight profit of two or three points, you can't sit still. Heart pounding, palms sweating. The only voice in your mind: “Run, run, run, don’t let the profits fly away.”
So you close the position. Then watch helplessly as the market continues to surge dozens of points.
You comfort yourself: “It's okay to have a profit, better to lock in gains.”
But deep down, you know—you're not “locking in gains,” you're “locking in to escape.” You’re like a scared rabbit, running at the slightest disturbance.
What’s the most absurd? You can lose fifty thousand yuan and stay still for three months. You make five hundred yuan and get so excited you can't sleep all night.
Your holding capacity is completely reversed.
“Afraid of profit retracement,” is your subconscious feeling that you don’t deserve to make money.
Why can't you hold?
On the surface, it’s fear of profit retracement. You finally make some, what if it drops back again? Better to run first, re-enter on a pullback.
The logic sounds flawless.
But ask yourself: when will you “wait for the pullback to re-enter”? Out of a hundred times, how many times have you really re-entered?
Most of the time—after you run, the market takes off like a rocket. The more you wait, the higher it goes, the more you dare not chase. Finally, you end up with a broken leg.
The deeper reason isn’t fear of retracement. It’s that deep inside, you don’t believe you can ride a complete market wave.
Your subconscious is saying: “Lucky me, I guessed right once, lock it in quickly, don’t let it slip away again.”
See? You attribute your profits to “luck,” and your losses to “the market being damn.” This attribution pattern keeps you trapped in the self-curse of “I don’t deserve to make money.”
Remember: you can't hold onto profits not because you're rational. It’s because deep down, you think you’re a loser, and the money you make will eventually be taken back.
Your double standards for handling profits and losses are extremely absurd.
Let’s compare, and you’ll see how serious your double standards are.
When losing money: you act like a philosopher. “The market will come back.” “This is just a normal pullback.” “I won’t fall before dawn.”
When making money: you act like a coward. “Almost there?” “What if it suddenly reverses?” “Better to exit now, safety first.”
Same “possibility,” but when losing money, you believe the optimistic side; when making money, you believe the pessimistic side.
This isn’t rational analysis; it’s fear hijacking your mind.
Why can you endure losses? Because you have an almost blind faith in “getting back to break-even.”
Why can't you hold onto profits? Because you have an extremely fragile fear of “profit taking.”
This mindset directly results in one outcome: your profit-loss ratio is always negative. Small profits, big losses. Statistically, you’re doomed to lose.
The thrill of profit lasts no more than three seconds, but the fear persists until you close the position.
There’s another issue you’ve never realized—your “pleasure” from profits is not lasting at all.
The moment your account shows floating gains, you’re happy for about three seconds. Then fear kicks in. “Will it drop back?” “Should I take profit?” “Maybe cut half at the current price?”
From floating profit to closing, you’re in a constant state of anxiety. You never truly enjoy the calm of holding a position.
But losses? When you’re losing, you actually feel a kind of “give up and accept it” relaxation. A 20% floating loss, and you’re no longer afraid—“If worse comes to worst, I’ll hold until I break even.”
How absurd is that? Profits cause you pain, losses make you comfortable.
Your psychological mechanism is completely reversed from the way it should be for making money.
What’s the fundamental difference between traders and retail investors? Retail investors see losses as disasters, profits as rewards. Traders know: losses are costs, profits are normal. That’s why they’re calm about gains and sensitive to losses.
And you? It’s completely the opposite.
The only way to solve “not being able to hold” is: anchor your actions with rules.
I won’t talk about vague concepts. Here’s a direct solution.
You can’t hold because you rely on “feelings” to decide when to close. “I feel it’s about right.” “I feel it’s going to pull back.”
Your feelings are worthless.
What you need to do is extremely simple: before entering a trade, set your take-profit level and stick to it. No matter what, don’t move it until it hits.
You say “What if the profit retraces?” If it retraces, so be it. That’s a permissible drawdown according to your rules. You avoid that 10% retracement but give up 100% of potential profit. Mathematically, you’re losing big.
You say “What if the market keeps going after I take profit?” Then so be it. That’s money you don’t understand, not meant for you to earn. What you can get is only what’s written in your rules.
Discipline isn’t for “trying to follow.” Discipline is for “must be executed.” If you think you’re clever for “taking profit early once,” you’ll never learn how to truly hold onto profits.
A brutal truth: your trading system isn’t the problem; your psychological capacity is too small.
Let me end with a harsh truth.
The reason you can’t hold onto profits is fundamentally because your “psychological account” capacity is too small.
Your mind can only hold a few hundred yuan in profits. Beyond that, you feel it’s unreal, abnormal, and it will eventually be lost.
But your psychological capacity for losses is enormous. Losing tens of thousands of yuan inside, and you still think it’s “normal.”
What you need to do isn’t just optimize your system; expand your psychological account. How? Force yourself to hold. Even if you give back half of your profits each time, endure until your rules’ take-profit level.
After ten times, your psychological capacity will expand. You’ll realize that riding a complete market wave isn’t that scary after all.
People who make small profits are always staring at the screen. People who make big profits are always waiting.
Set your take-profit level properly, turn off the screen. Do whatever you need. When it’s time, take the money. When it’s not, wait.
If you can do this, you’ve gone from “gambler” to “trader.”